That same summer, however, a federal judge rescinded the judgment on Sambor and Richmond, ruling that as city employees enacting their public responsibilities on May 13, , they were entitled to immunity. After the fire, members of the MOVE organization settled into a house on South 56th Street, where they maintained a low profile for several years.
In , they relocated their headquarters to two Victorian twins in the block of Kingsessing Avenue, in the Spruce Hill neighborhood a few blocks west of Clark Park.
About 20 adult members were involved. When she negotiated with realtors, she used her given name, Wicker, and covered her dreadlocks with a scarf. Most are African American, a few are white. While a few MOVE members own homes in Cherry Hill and elsewhere in West Philadelphia, most live communally in both units of a large, well-kept gray-stone three story Victorian twin.
Supreme Court. Two of the original nine, Merle Africa and Phil Africa, died in prison. View Image Details. Students at the Jubilee School, a private middle-school at 42nd and Chester streets, researched the MOVE bombing and successfully campaigned for the State Historical Marker installed on the southeast corner of Osage Avenue and Cobbs Creek Parkway in the summer of Search form Search.
Toggle navigation West Philadelphia Collaborative History. They boarded up walls, built a bunker on the roof, and broadcast their anti-police ethos through a bullhorn , night and day. Then district attorney Ed Rendell authorized arrest warrants and mayor Wilson Goode sent in police. The only justice that can be done is people seeing this system for what it is.
Hundreds of officers, several fire trucks and a bomb squad arrived that day, with military-grade weapons in tow. They first tried to flush out the house with fire hoses.
A team then blew holes in the walls to funnel in teargas, but no one budged. In my opinion everyone who was an adult in the city failed that day. Move failed, the police failed, the neighbors failed those children in some ways. Collectively, the whole city failed. Eventually police tried to break the siege by bombing the bunker, which they feared would allow Move to fire on them with impunity. The bomb missed and started a fire. Africa and Ward — then called Birdie Africa — only fled the cellar an hour or so later when the fire had spread downstairs.
Now Mike Africa wants to see the release of an associate of Move, the former Black Panther member Mumia Abu-Jamal who has been incarcerated since for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer. Africa also wants to see some form of reprimand for those who ordered and participated in the bombing. Other Move members are skeptical about the value of the talks.
One of the doubters is Ramona Africa, who was the only adult to escape the Move house in May after Powell dropped the bomb. She told the Guardian how she and 12 others cowered in the basement of Osage Avenue as the house came under blistering attack. Water cannons were unleashed, teargas pumped in, the front of the house blown off with explosives.
Then more than 10, rounds of ammunition were fired from police submachine guns. The whole house shook. Ramona was able to flee through a basement exit along with just one child, Birdie Africa. The other 11 adults and children tried to follow them out but were forced back under a hail of police gunfire, she said, though that account has been disputed over the years by Philadelphia police. Ramona was badly burned in the fire.
For her pains, she was arrested, charged with riot and conspiracy, and spent the next seven years behind bars — the only person ever to be convicted of crimes arising from the attack. Given her devastating experiences, she is dubious about the prospects of reconciliation. Janine Africa, one of the Move 9 imprisoned after the siege, lost her year-old son Little Phil in the bombing.
Janine bitterly remembers how she learned that her child had diedwhile she was being held in solitary confinement she was released almost exactly a year ago after 41 years in prison. That was it. No explanation. Janine Africa is also unconvinced by the push for an apology. Despite such reservations, Ulysses Slaughter, a reconciliation strategist who has mediated the talks, is certain the process is needed to heal the wounds that are still open for so many Philadelphians.
Several of the more than police officers who took part on the siege on 13 May , as well as firefighters, have also been involved in the reconciliation talks. Jim Berghaier was on police duty in Osage Avenue that day and helped Birdie Africa escape the conflagration.
He told the Guardian that he is haunted by the image of the boy walking through a wall of fire.
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