Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the African American extremist organization MOVE had several dramatic encounters with police.
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Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the African American extremist organization MOVE had several dramatic encounters with police.
Courtesy of Amigo Media
On May 13, 1985, after a long standoff, Philadelphia municipal authorities dropped a bomb on an apartment house. The Osage Street house was the headquarters of the African-American extremist group MOVE, which has faced police on numerous occasions since the group’s founding in 1972.
The resulting fire killed 11 people—including five children and the group’s leader, John Africa—destroyed 61 homes and tore apart a community.
in Let the fire burn, A new film screened at the AFI Docs FestivalDirector Jason Osder chronicles the years of tension between police, MOVE, and neighbors that ended in tragedy.
The film’s title refers to the local authorities’ decision to allow the fire to sweep through the complex without intervention.
Osder, an assistant professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University, grew up in Philadelphia and was about the same age as the children killed in the fire.
“Those of us who are lucky enough to have a fairly traditional childhood, we grow up sheltered in a certain way. And for most people, there comes a moment when that shelter breaks,” Osder tells NPR’s Neil Conan.
“My parents’ generation will always remember where they were when JFK died, but for me, it was the fire of movement.”
The catalyst for the incident came eight years earlier, in 1978, when a confrontation between police and MOVE led to the death of a police officer. Nine members of the organization were imprisoned for the shooting. The movement said that the death was the result of friendly fire.
After this incident, the movement regrouped and agitated the neighborhood to attract the attention of the authorities. The group moved to a complex on Osage Street. In the months leading up to the fire, members of the group built a very scary shelter-like structure on the roof of their house.
The 1985 MOVE fire killed 11 people, including five children, and destroyed 61 homes.
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The 1985 MOVE fire killed 11 people, including five children, and destroyed 61 homes.
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“It has holes to shoot from, and it has a raised floor on the block,” Osder says. “The police came to believe they were in real danger.“
The police launched a large-scale operation aimed at expelling the group from their compound. After a days-long standoff, with thousands of shots fired, police dropped explosives on the Osage home from a helicopter.
“I think there is a certain view that, in effect, they wanted to sensationalize the actions of the police and show the true nature of the regime when they got to the top.
“Did they expect to get to the top with such violence? Did they intend to die at home? I don’t know the answer to that. It’s not impossible that they would have done that, actually.”
MOVE has sometimes been described as a religious cult, as a back-to-nature group — which was known for requiring a vegetarian diet — and sometimes as an offshoot of the Black Panthers.
Osder says he found in his research that the true nature of the group was much more complex.
“Back to nature seemed like a fairly appropriate description in the early 1970s, when I started, but things have gradually become more stringent,” Osder says. “In fact, the group will reject almost all of these descriptions. It will reject a return to nature as well as black liberation.”
“They were all the things we talked about, but they were also family.”
The film uses exclusively archival footage from local television coverage and court hearings to piece together the story, without commentary or interviews. Osder spoke to Michael Ward, the only child to survive the fire. To Ramona Africa, the surviving adult; And to a police officer. He ultimately decided not to use the footage.
“There was a combination of realizing that in those hearings, we had tremendous potential to do something different and unique,” Osder says. “And that’s, actually, the things you want to do in a documentary interview weren’t that strong in the interviews that we filmed. They weren’t that revealing. People didn’t learn that much. They didn’t learn that much. It changed a lot.”