On May 13, 1985, police surrounded the home of MOVE, a radical Black liberation organization that was defying orders to vacate from 6221 Osage Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Police flooded the home with water, filled it with tear gas, blasted it with automatic weapons, and finally dropped a bomb on the house from a helicopter, setting it ablaze and killing 11 residents — six adults and five children. The fire ultimately burned the entire city block to the ground, destroying over 60 homes. We speak with second-generation MOVE member Mike Africa Jr., who has launched a “Reclaim Osage” campaign to repurchase the bombed MOVE house after the city previously used eminent domain to seize it and turn it into a police substation before selling it to developers.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.