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Police Bombed MOVE Organizers’ Home in 1985 | FRONTLINE (PBS)
An investigation into the 1985 police bombing of the Black revolutionary group MOVE’s headquarters in a middle-class neighborhood in West Philadelphia. (Aired 1987)
On May 13, 1985, a years-long feud between the Black revolutionary group MOVE and Philadelphia officials reached a bloody culmination that saw police dropping a military-grade bomb in a Black residential neighborhood and allowing the resulting fire to rage. Eleven people were killed at MOVE’s headquarters, five of them children, and 61 neighboring homes were destroyed.
How it happened, and who was responsible, is the focus of the 1987 FRONTLINE documentary, “The Bombing of West Philly.”
“We have to remember that this nation fought wars to prevent bombs from being dropped on its people in this country,” Novella Williams, a community activist, said in the documentary. “And we sit by and allow a little city government to borrow a helicopter and concoct a bomb with high military explosives, C-4, and drop it on our people? What kind of people are we?” The documentary is a powerful and nuanced exploration of that question, tracing back to the 1970s, when MOVE arose against the backdrop of stark police brutality against Black Philadelphians.
The 1985 bombing and the resulting fire destroyed not just the MOVE compound, but also the homes of frustrated neighbors who had complained about MOVE’s tactics to city officials and begged for their help.
The Philadelphia City Council issued a formal apology for the MOVE bombing in 2020, acknowledging “the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity” of the event. No city officials were ever criminally charged.
“The Bombing of West Philly” was written, produced and directed by Martin Smith. The correspondent was Leon Dash. The associate producer was Sue Williams. The executive producer of FRONTLINE was David Fanning.
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