Google “only bomb ever dropped on an American neighborhood” and you’ll find yourself in Philadelphia 40 years ago, in a middle-class, Black community.  

On May 13, 1985, the Philadelphia Police Department dropped a satchel of plastic explosives on a West Philadelphia rowhouse.  Eleven people were killed including 5 children, all members of. the MOVE family, a group of self-described revolutionaries who share the adopted surname, Africa and wear their signature dreadlocks. 

The explosion caused a fire that burned down the house and leveled an entire city block. Eleven people died, including five children. Sixty-one homes were destroyed and 250 people were left homeless. 

“You can’t drop a bomb — the only time this has ever happened is to my family,” Michael Africa, the son of two members of MOVE, told Black News & Views.

Africa was born in prison after his parents were convicted for a MOVE confrontation. He successfully pushed for the city to declare today, May 13, an official Day of Remembrance.  

Forty years after the city dropped a bomb on itself, causing a human tragedy and community disaster of epic proportions, Philadelphia will pause for reflection today.

“I know that MOVE is a very controversial subject but there is never any excuse for dropping a bomb on people and shooting them as they tried to escape a burning building,” Africa said.

The Day of Remembrance is just a beginning, he continued.   

“My thoughts are kind of mixed,” Africa said. “I am still grieving and I think about the neighbors who lost their homes, valuables and possessions.  Conflicts have to be handled better than they were handled in 1985.”  

The 1978 roots of the MOVE confrontation

The 1985 MOVE bombing had its roots in a standoff several years earlier in 1978.  MOVE accused police of causing the death of a MOVE baby after a violent raid on their compound.  Then Mayor Frank Rizzo ordered a massive police blockade to isolate members of the back-to-nature group and “starve” the MOVE people out of their house.  MOVE members were seen carrying rifles to guard their compound.  

The 1978 standoff ended with a shootout that left a police officer dead.  Despite testimony that the officer likely died from “friendly fire”, nine MOVE members were convicted of murder; each, including Mike Africa’s parents, was sentenced to 30 to 100 years in prison.  Known as the MOVE 9, they maintained their innocence and the MOVE organization was determined to free them.  

“We had demonstrations at City Hall, demonstrations at the police station.  We got beat up, thrown in jail.”  MOVE member Pam Africa told Black News & Views, describing efforts to protest the 1978 confrontation and push for release of wrongly imprisoned MOVE members.  

But their tactics drew them into a battle with one of the most brutal police departments in the country.  MOVE became a particular target of police harassment.  Temple University journalism Prof. Linn Washington credits the police mistreatment of MOVE with raising support and empathy in the Black community.   

“People were sympathetic to MOVE not because of their lifestyle or incoherent philosophy but because they fought back against the police; the Black community was under a siege by Rizzo,” Washington said.   

Former Police Commissioner Rizzo, who became the city’s mayor in 1972, was considered an unabashed racist.  Over the years, several groups sued the Philadelphia Police Department for excessive force and civil rights violations, including the Department of Justice, the ACLU of Pennsylvania, and a group of residents.

“Here you had this group of people who would fight back, physically fight back,” Washington said. “In the end they were overwhelmed by superior force but the cops who went in, those first few cops, they got some serious beatdowns.  The attitude was: ‘If Rizzo can get away with this with MOVE, then what about us?’ ”  

May 13, 1985: The bombing

After the 1978 shootout, MOVE members relocated to West Philadelphia and intensified their demands to release imprisoned MOVE members.  But establishing a base in a middle-class Black neighborhood only highlighted open conflict between MOVE’s back-to-nature lifestyle and traditional standards of living in a rowhouse community.  MOVE’s random disposal of waste and feeding of stray animals drew rodents and roaches; their belief in respecting all life meant they wouldn’t exterminate.  

Lloyd Wilson lived next door to MOVE and testified before the MOVE Commission, established by then-Mayor Wilson Goode to investigate the 1985 bombing. Lloyd said his children’s arms and legs were coated with bug bites. 

 “Our back window that faced the driveway,  I pulled the shades up one day and the whole window was covered with bugs,” he said. “I almost vomited when I saw it.”

MOVE mounted bullhorns on its new headquarters and protested for the MOVE 9 with profanity filled diatribes against the cops, the courts, the justice system, and the government.  Invective-laced lectures about the philosophy of John Africa, founder of MOVE, lasted for hours on end.  MOVE people used the adjoining rooftops of the houses on the block as a running track, exercising in the middle of the night, keeping neighbors from sleeping and causing roof damage.  The neighbors, initially supportive of MOVE, became hostages of the MOVE strategy to get their members out of prison.    

Neighbors reported more frequent conflicts with the MOVE family and MOVE’s tirades included threats to kill police and the Mayor.  Finally, MOVE built a bunker on top of their roof complete with a gunport that would allow them to fire weapons on the street below. They hoisted containers of gasoline up to the roof, preparing for a second confrontation with police.  Begging for relief, neighbors made repeated calls to city government and to Mayor Goode, the city’s  first Black mayor.    

Goode today welcomes the Day of Remembrance but wants people to remember both sides of this catastrophe.  

“There were issues on the MOVE side of the equation that should be looked at as well, the way they treated the neighbors,” he said. “ Every day there were members of the block coming into my office with complaints.”

Neighbors seek relief

By 1985, neighbors grew frustrated with what they described as a lack of response from the mayor and city agencies.  Residents reached out to late former Pennsylvania Gov. Dick Thornburgh for help, describing themselves as hostages to terrorists.  The neighbors’ statement read: 

“We are here to let the governor know about the disquietude and general state of terror we are forced to live under by the MOVE organization. We want the governor to know that regardless of whatever may have happened in the past, today MOVE is a clear and present danger to the health and safety of our entire block. We also want the governor to know that we have been to our elected representatives in city and state government, but to date nothing of any consequence has been done.”

This public announcement finally prompted city government to act.  Arrest warrants were issued and on Mother’s Day, May 12, police evacuated the block, telling residents they would be allowed back in 24 hours. The city cut off water, gas, and electricity and prepared to make arrests. Five-hundred police officers brought an array of weapons and ammunition to the site, including M16 semi-automatic rifles, Uzis, shotguns, 30.06 and .22-250 sharpshooter rifles, a Browning automatic rifle, and a Thompson submachine gun.   

The confrontation

Shortly after dawn on May 13, then Police Commissioner Gregore Sambor made his own bullhorn announcement listing the names of all MOVE members with open warrants.  

“Attention, MOVE, this is America; you have to abide by the laws of the United States!”, the Commissioner shouted.  “All occupants have 15 minutes to peacefully evacuate the premises and surrender. This is your only notice. The 15 minutes starts now.”    

What followed turned the neighborhood into a war zone.  According to the MOVE Commission investigation, the police fired “over 10,000 rounds of ammunition in under 90 minutes at a row house containing children.” 

By afternoon, police made plans to blow the bunker off the roof.  With the support of several law enforcement agencies, police department had a range of resources at their disposal.  The FBI supplied them with plastic explosives, C-4 and Tovex, a gel explosive   The bomb was packed into a satchel and taken to a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter. 

At 5:27 p.m. that day, Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on the roof of the MOVE house despite the presence of a five-gallon can of gasoline on the roof.  The explosion ignited a fire that became a tactical weapon for authorities. Commissioner Sambor ordered the Fire Department to let the flames burn to drive the occupants out.  

“The decision to let the fire burn was simply an outrageous decision”, said former Mayor Goode, who has made a public apology for the MOVE tragedy.  

Goode took much of the blame for May 13, but is adamant that the decision to bomb was not discussed with him.  The decision was made on site by his three top commanders:  Police Commissioner Greg Sambor, Managing Director Leo Brooks and Fire Commissioner William Richmond.  

“I would have said absolutely not,” Goode said. “Of all the decisions made, the worst was letting the fire burn. One could have easily put the fire out and what happened to MOVE and the neighbors would not have happened.”

The back alley

As the fire burned out of control and spread to 60 nearby homes, the operations plan called for police to be stationed in a back alley ready to capture MOVE members who exited the building.  

The MOVE Commission investigation revealed a serious breach of the plan approved by Mayor Goode.  Goode issued two clear order: first, that no action be taken if children were in the home; second, that no police officers assigned to the first MOVE confrontation (which ended with the death of a policeman) were to be involved in the 1985 operation.  The orders were issued with the unmistakable intent of excluding any police who might seek revenge for the death of Officer James Ramp in 1978.   

The exact opposite unfolded. There were five children in the home. A contingent of the officers stationed in the alley for MOVE’s surrender were among the hundreds of police who witnessed the death of their colleague in 1978.   

MOVE Commission testimony from then-13-year-old Michael Moses Ward, also known as Birdie Africa, described several failed attempts by MOVE to exit the burning building. Ward, one of two people who survived the fire, told the MOVE Commission that his family was pinned down by police gunfire and forced back into the raging flames.  

Ramona Africa, the only adult to escape the fire, told Pacifica’s “Up Rising” program on the 30th anniversary in 2015, “When we realized the home was on fire, we immediately attempted to get our children, our animals and ourselves out of that blazing inferno.”  

She continued, “The instant the cops could see us trying to come out—and  we were hollering that we’re coming out, we’re bringing the children out—the instant the cops could see us, we were met with a barrage of police gunfire.”

Forensic analysis of crime scene evidence later uncovered bullet fragments lodged in the bones of the burned bodies of MOVE members and their children.    

No city official or police officer was ever charged with a crime in connection with the MOVE bombing and fire. Ramona Africa was convicted of conspiracy to riot. She served seven years in prison.  

Today, the homes on the 6200 block of Osage Avenue have been rebuilt, but most of the original residents have relocated. Mike Africa bought the MOVE house but it is still unoccupied.  He is hoping for a better way to handle conflicts and a better look at a new generation of MOVE leaders. 

“I think I represent the side of MOVE that a lot of people never got to see,” he said. “People got to see MOVE and meet MOVE in its destructive phase. They didn’t see the loving side of us. I am a representative of who we really are, without the abuse of state government to the point where I am ready to put a gun on my back.”