May 20, 2025
40 Years After the MOVE Bombing, the Scars Remain
By Phoebe Grandi
Mike Africa Jr. was only 6 years old when Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on 6221 Osage Avenue. But he remembers everything.
Mike Africa Jr. sat in his office in West Philadelphia, his hands resting on the table, his gaze steady and straight ahead. “I saw smoke, and a friend of mine said, ‘They dropped a bomb on MOVE.’ And I just immediately dismissed him. Like, ‘No they didn’t’.”
Forty years ago today, Philadelphia became known as the city that bombed itself.
The bombing, which has come to be seen as one of the darkest days in the city’s history, began as a tense standoff between city officials and a back-to-earth Black liberation organization called MOVE over neighborhood noise complaints. It ended with the brutal deaths of 11 MOVE members, five of whom were children.
Africa, now 46, was only 6 years old when Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on 6221 Osage Avenue, MOVE’s then-headquarters. But he remembers everything. “I knew something was happening because in the house people were moving funny.… I went in [my grandma’s] house to find out what was up. And I saw them watching the news.”
