Weblog
05/12/01 06:38 PM: If I were to ask
If I were to ask 100 people why tomorrow is noteworthy, 99 would probably reply that it is Mother’s Day. I doubt that anyone would say that it is the 16th anniversary of the May 13th, 1985 police bombing of a house in Philadelphia, when 11 of the 13 people in the house were murdered by then-mayor Frank Rizzo. Have you ever heard of MOVE? On that day the Philadelphia police force dropped a C-4 bomb on a house with six children and seven adults in it. Convinced that MOVE’s natural lifestyle (eating only organic raw foods, not cutting their hair, doing lots of manual labor) was harmful to the children, the authorities were supposedly waging war against the MOVE organization for the good of the children. Prior to the bombing, the police had orders to round up any MOVE children they saw. Despite this, they knowingly allowed a car carrying MOVE children to pass police barricades and go to the house, which they bombed later that day. MOVE members that were not killed outright and tried to escape the burning house were shot at by cops with machine guns. Women, children, whatever. The sole surviving adult, Ramona Africa, was sentenced to seven years in prison for “riot and conspiracy,” i.e. for surviving. This is only one of the many, many injustices carried out by the authorities against the MOVE organization over the years. If you’d like to know more about MOVE (and you should, it’s really quite fascinating), request a copy of 25 Years On the MOVE (and send a donation, $5 or so) to
MOVE
P.O. Box 19709
Philadelphia, PA 19143
