"I communicated ... that I would like to let the fire burn"

May 11, 2020 9:05 AM

Philadelphia native Gene Demby reports for NPR on the day the day the Philadelphia police bombed 62nd and Osage Avenue in West Philadelphia. "I started revisiting the story of MOVE in earnest when the issue of race and policing in the United States had again become a regular focus of the national news. Almost every chord from that larger metastory — the mutual distrust between the police and black communities, the militarization of local law enforcement agencies, incidents of police brutality — seemed to play out in the particular story of the MOVE bombing — except in the case of MOVE, the volume and scale was ratcheted way up: Philadelphia's police had killed nearly a dozen people and, in the process, leveled an entire swath of a neighborhood full of middle-class black homeowners."
posted by ChuraChura (20 comments total)

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posted by ZeusHumms at 9:17 AM on May 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

When I was mayor, Philadelphia bombed civilians. It's time for the city to apologise
posted by shoesietart at 10:17 AM on May 11, 2020 [5 favorites]

I highly recommend the documentary Let the Fire Burn.
posted by TwoStride at 10:31 AM on May 11, 2020 [7 favorites]

Thanks for this. I've heard some about the MOVE bombing since I was a kid, and learned more since I moved to Philly a couple of years ago, but this is the most comprehensive story about it I've read, and really helps put a lot of what I'd heard into context. My commute to work takes me not too far past the site of the bombing; there's now a historical marker on Cobb's Creek Parkway at the intersection with Osage Avenue commemorating the MOVE bombing. The neighborhood is in ruins there, not from the fire as it was rebuilt afterwards, but from its failure to ever recover economically and socially from its destruction despite the reconstruction of the physical environment. It's even more tragic now that I've read the residents' memories of what it was like 35 years ago.

Next time I'm in Center City I'll be sure to stop by Frank Rizzo's statue and give it the finger.
posted by biogeo at 11:19 AM on May 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

I lived in Philadelphia at the time. It was hard to believe, even in Philadelphia, that police would bomb someone's house. Not as hard today, unfortunately. I'd just like to know when the police war on black people will end. And what it will take for folks to see.
posted by evilDoug at 11:22 AM on May 11, 2020 [5 favorites]

In 1986, WHYY (Philadelphia's PBS member station) produced a documentary called Bombing of Osage that offers a fair bit of history from a local point-of-view.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:22 AM on May 11, 2020 [6 favorites]

They sucked his brains out!, I just finished watching the documentary you linked. It's absolutely incredible and I strongly recommend others watch it as well.
posted by biogeo at 12:24 PM on May 11, 2020

I was in Dental school at Penn that spring. We lived in a rowhome at 44th and pine, pretty much 18 blocks in a line from the MOVE compound. We used to sit on our roof on sunny days to study. Helicopter activity had us curious, and i remember hearing the explosion, but can't rightly recall if we were on the roof prior to that. We watched the fire in awe and horror for hour upon hour, could clearly hear the gunshots from that distance. We were checking in in shifts with the televised news as more and more friends arrived. no one wanted to leave the roof. it was quite a day.
It was also near the end of our semester, so near finals and the other stresses of school, so it faded from our concern throughout that summer, because that was the summer of Live-aid in Philly, which was a feel-good counterpoint at the time.
posted by OHenryPacey at 12:31 PM on May 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

Out of curiosity I just took a look at the neighborhood with Google Street View, and I feel I should amend my previous description of it. The 6200 blocks of Osage and Pine, which have newer-looking construction that I've assumed date to after the bombing, were previously filled with abandoned buildings, but it looks like within the last year or so someone has started doing some significant renovation on these abandoned properties, which was ongoing whenever the Street View car last drove through. I really hope this represents real local investment and development in the community and not some kind of absentee landlord trying to turn a buck from flipping properties with cut-rate work. Cobbs Creek is a beautiful area generally; I would love for these blocks to be able to return to something like the way they were before they were bombed.
posted by biogeo at 12:42 PM on May 11, 2020

The way this story has been forgotten by the American public never ceases to blow my mind. THEY FIREBOMBED A BLOCK IN THE MIDDLE OF A CITY.
posted by praemunire at 5:09 PM on May 11, 2020 [6 favorites]

.

As someone who doesn't know much detail, this looks like a thoughtful and interesting article. Thanks!

I'm a bit ashamed to admit I'm always a little hesitant when it comes to talking about the MOVE bombing and attack. It was an inexcusable, criminal act that should never have happened and should have sent everyone who participated or signed off on it to prison. There's no question about that. And it's not unique or detached from the city government and history of policing.

It's also true, at least from my point of view, that the people best able to talk about it very rarely do a good job of convincing me that we believe in anything like the same physical reality. That's not their job, and it doesn't matter at all when it comes to the history. But, I've got to admit, my eyes roll a bit when someone with the surname Africa takes the mic at a rally. I'm not proud of that. But, I suspect the ongoing religious movement is a significant part of why secular, white leftists like me don't talk about it as much as we should.
posted by eotvos at 7:13 PM on May 11, 2020 [3 favorites]

MOVE at the Encycopedia of Greater Philadelphia
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:12 PM on May 11, 2020

I remember hearing about it on the news back when it happened and had a moment of "wait, I can't have heard that right - they did WHAT?"
posted by rmd1023 at 1:09 PM on May 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

As a native Philadelphian, the MOVE bombing has been a sort of common knowledge through my life. It's worth noting that MOVE was not beloved by their neighbors. Blasting political messages by megaphone while people tried to sleep is never going to endear one to the neighbors.

That said, the bombing was 100% overkill, and burning down an entire neighborhood of black people was cruelty that is beyond fucked. You don't have to like or support MOVE to think the bombing was a terrible crime far in excess of anything MOVE had done, or even could do.
posted by SansPoint at 10:14 AM on May 13, 2020 [2 favorites]

So if nobody was held criminally accountable, what happened to the homeowners who lost their houses? Did the city pay them to rebuild, was it covered by their insurance?

What do you do when the police come in and destroy your house in an attempt to catch a criminal?
posted by suelac at 10:34 AM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]

Looks like I'm never going to get a chance to give Frank Rizzo's statue the finger. After protesters defaced and attempted to burn the statue on Saturday, Mayor Jim Kenney moved forward plans to remove the statue in a month, and had it removed last night. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
posted by biogeo at 10:00 AM on June 3, 2020 [3 favorites]

I'm trying to thing of something appropriate to do with the remnants of the statue after melting it down.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:31 AM on June 4, 2020

The world always needs more urinals.
posted by Etrigan at 6:46 AM on June 4, 2020 [4 favorites]

Ooh! And keep the face as part of the urinal like they put those bees to encourage dudes to aim
posted by LizBoBiz at 8:57 AM on June 4, 2020 [1 favorite]

Someone on the Philadelphia subreddit suggested melting it down and turning it into a statue of Sun Ra.

I honestly can't think of anything better than turning a Rizzo statue into a statue of a Black Liberation figure and artist who did his best, most groundbreaking work while living in Philadelphia.
posted by SansPoint at 9:53 AM on June 4, 2020 [4 favorites]