History
[edit] Origins and belief system
MOVE was created by John Africa, an illiterate and charismatic leader, who dictated a document known as The Guideline (sic) to Donald Glassey. Africa and his followers, most of them black, wore their hair in dreadlocks and advocated a radical form of green politics and a return to hunter-gatherer society while stating their opposition to science, medicine and technology. They believed that chewing garlic, for example, would suffice as a remedy in place of modern western medicine. As John Africa himself had done, his devotees also changed their surnames in reverence to what they regarded as their mother continent.
[edit] Activities prior to 1978
The MOVE members lived in a commune in a house owned by Donald Glassey in the Powelton Village section of West Philadelphia. MOVE members staged bullhorn-amplified, profanity-laced demonstrations against institutions which they opposed morally, such as zoos (they had strong views on animal rights, seeing them connected to black liberation), and speakers whose views they opposed. MOVE made compost piles of garbage and human waste in their yards, attracting rats and cockroaches. Considering it morally wrong to kill them with pest control, they attracted much hostility from their neighbors. Their actions brought close scrutiny from the Philadelphia police.[citation needed]
[edit] 1978 incident
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In 1978, an end was negotiated to an almost year-long standoff with police. MOVE failed to relocate as required by the court order.[3] When the police later attempted entry, Philadelphia police officer James J. Ramp was killed in a shootout. Seven other police officers, five firefighters, three MOVE members, and three bystanders were injured.[4] As a result, nine MOVE members were found guilty of third-degree murder in the shooting death of a police officer. Seven of the nine became eligible for parole in the spring of 2008, and all seven were denied parole.[5][6] Parole hearings now occur yearly.
[edit] 1985 incident
Subsequently, MOVE relocated to a row house at 6221 Osage Avenue in 1985. On May 13, 1985, responding to months of complaints by neighbors that MOVE members broadcast political messages by bullhorn at all hours and about the health hazard of the compost piles, the Philadelphia Police Department attempted to clear the building.[2] The police tried to remove two wood-and-steel rooftop structures, called bunkers by the police, by dropping a four-pound bomb made of C-4 plastic explosive and Tovex, a dynamite substitute, onto the roof.[7] The resulting explosion caused the house to catch fire, igniting a massive blaze which eventually consumed almost an entire city block.[8] Eleven people, including John Africa, five other adults and five children, died in the resulting fire.[9] Ramona Africa and one child, Birdie Africa, were the only survivors.
Mayor Wilson Goode soon appointed an investigative commission, the PSIC or MOVE commission, which issued its report on March 6, 1986. The report denounced the actions of the city government, stating that "Dropping a bomb on an occupied row house was unconscionable."[10]
In a 1996 civil suit in U.S. federal court, a jury ordered the City of Philadelphia and two former city officials to pay $1.5 million to a survivor and relatives of two people killed in the incident. The jury found that the city used excessive force and violated the members' constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure.[9]