Let The Fire Burn: The City of Philidelphia vs MOVE

MOVE Members



Almost twenty five years ago, the city of Philadelphia and MOVE collided, resulting in death and destruction. Here's the story for those who never heard it or those who can't quite remember it's tragic outcome.

MOVE or the MOVE Organization is a Philadelphia-based black liberation group founded by John Africa in 1972. MOVE is not an acronym, but a philosophy- move, work, generate. Anything that doesn't move is stagnant or dead. MOVE was described by CNN as "a loose-knit, mostly black group whose members all adopted the surname Africa, advocated a 'back-to-nature' lifestyle and preached against technology". The MOVE members lived in a commune in a house in the Powelton Village section of West Philadelphia. Africa and his followers (the majority of them African-American), wore their hair in dreadlocks and advocated a radical form of green politics and a return to a hunter-gatherer society while stating their opposition to science, medicine and technology. As John Africa himself had done, his devotees also changed their surnames to show reverence to Africa, which they regarded as their mother continent.

Read More