Burning Down the House (& a Whole Neighborhood): 1985 Philadelphia Police Bombing of the MOVE HQs
6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
MOVE Bombing Film, Lecture, and Discussion: On May 13, 1985, the Philadelphia Police, amid a confrontation with the dissident group MOVE, dropped a bomb on a row house in a Black working-class neighborhood, setting a fire that killed 11 of the house’s 13 occupants (including five children) and burned down 61 residences; the fire’s spread resulted in substantial part from an initial decision to withhold firefighting for some 45 minutes, in a vain attempt to force the house’s inhabitants to flee the building.
Documentary: “Let the Fire Burn” (Director: Jason Osder)
Lecturer: Dr. Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Professor Emerita of Sociology, New School for Social Research; Author, Discourse and Destruction: The City of Philadelphia Versus MOVE (The University of Chicago Press, 1994)
Discussants: Professor Ronald Brown, Wayne State Political Science Department; Professor Jalila Jefferson-Bullock, Wayne State Law School Moderator: Professor Brad Roth, Wayne State Political Science Department & Law School
Sponsors: Detroit Center for Black Studies Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights, Wayne State Law School Wayne State Political Science Department Wayne State Office of Multicultural Student Engagement Juneteenth Planning Committee