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Protesters demonstrated this week outside Penn Museum over the handling of the recently revealed MOVE remains. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
The 1985 bombing of MOVE headquarters, a rowhouse at 6221 Osage Avenue, remains one of the largest stains on Philadelphia history. City officials killed 11 people, including five children, after police dropped explosives on the home via helicopter and authorities let the fire burn. Thirty-six years later, four surviving mothers of the youngest victims say even in death, their children can’t find peace.
On two recent occasions, Janine, Janet, Sue, and Consuewella Africa said they were shocked to learn how human remains of their family members were treated and kept from them via a muddled chain of custody.
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Organizers and surviving members of the MOVE family march down the 6200 block of Osage Avenue on May 13, 2021. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
It was 36 years ago that city officials targeting The Movement, a Black liberation group, flew a helicopter over a West Philadelphia home and dropped a bomb on top of it killing 11 people, five of them children.
Officials let the subsequent massive fire burn. More than 60 houses in the predominantly Black neighborhood were reduced to rubble.
More than three decades later, “the scars of the West Philly bombing continue to devastate Philadelphia’s Black community,” Abdul-Aliy Muhammad wrote for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
MOVE ‘Day of Remembrance’ honors lives lost
By Betsey Piette posted on May 14, 2021
Philadelphia
On the 36th anniversary of the horrific bombing of the MOVE family house in Philadelphia on May 13, 1985, hundreds gathered at Osage Ave. and Cobbs Creek Parkway at a plaque commemorating the event. Speakers focused on naming and remembering the lives of the six adults and five children murdered by the repressive state.
Pam Africa (left) and Mike Africa, Jr, lead march through West Philadelphia holding signs with names of those killed May 13, 1985. WW Photo: Joe Piette
This year’s commemoration was especially poignant because of recent revelations involving the city’s callus mishandling and mistreatment of the remains of children who died there.