蜜芽传媒

On May 13th 1985, Philadelphia police dropped a bomb from a helicopter on a terraced house on Osage Avenue in West Philadelphia. The target was MOVE, a radical, back-to-nature group who had been locked in a years-long conflict with the police, city authorities and their neighbours. The fire that followed destroyed 61 homes, left 250 homeless, and killed 11 people, five of whom were children. Yet these dramatic events have been largely forgotten.

Philadelphia journalist Linn Washington reported on MOVE for almost 50 years. He was one of a handful of journalists on the scene on 13 May 1985 and saw first hand the bombing and its aftermath. Now he pieces together the story from MOVE鈥檚 beginnings in the 1970s as a non-violent countercultural group, to the deadly confrontation little more than a decade later.

Few people could have more authority to tell this extraordinary story. For most of the tumultuous 1970s, Linn was a young reporter on the Philadelphia Tribune, the oldest continuously published African-American newspaper in the United States. He reported frequently on the police violence and the politics of City Hall which, he says, created the context for the Osage Avenue bombing. Looking back today as Professor of Journalism at Temple University, Philadelphia, Linn asks why the incident is so little remembered.

Philadelphia鈥檚 Forgotten Bomb draws on news archive and the official commission inquiry into the bombing. We feature conversations with MOVE members Ramona Africa, Janet Holloway Africa, Eddie Goodman Africa, Delbert Orr Africa and Janine Phillips Africa, an ex-Philadelphia police James Berghaier, and Baba Renfrow - one of MOVE鈥檚 Osage Avenue neighbours who lost their home in the fire.

With thanks to People Power Lunch Hour and Heather Ann Thompson.
Producer: Nadia Mehdi
Mixing and sound design: Arlie Adlington
Executive producer: Monica Whitlock
A TellTale Industries production for 蜜芽传媒 Radio 4