“MOVE: Untangling the Tragedy” is a six episode podcast collaboration between Temple University’s Logan Center for Urban Investigative Reporting and the Philadelphia Inquirer. It details what led the city to bomb a rowhome in 1985, killing 11 people, including six children, all members of a controversial, Black-led, back-to-nature group that for years had clashed with police.
The bomb ignited a raging inferno that destroyed 61 homes and left 250 people homeless in a middle-class Black neighborhood in West Philadelphia. Never before had and never since has a U.S. city bombed its own citizens. The podcast, launched to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing, is a raw and unfiltered tapestry of sound hosted by Linn Washington Jr., who has covered MOVE for nearly a half century. Producers combed through hundreds of hours of archival tape to transport the listener back in time as fresh interviews provide a 360-degree perspective from former neighbors, journalists, negotiators, and MOVE members.
This podcast brings this tangled history to a new generation. It’s a story about double standards of justice, police brutality, and the inequities that underlined it all.
The Logan Center also produced a directed reading to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the bombing and the podcast release. “Move Mocks Us All,” is a searing exploration of that tragedy and its aftermath. The play was written by Former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Maida Odom spent over 28 harrowing hours embedded directly across the street from 6221 Osage Avenue — the police target during the 1985 MOVE confrontation.
She reported through fear as thousands of bullets were fired and gallons of water rained down, all in an effort to force controversial MOVE members from their home. Hours after she left, a bomb was dropped by police, killing 11 people — including 5 children. The ensuing fire destroyed 61 homes and left 250 people homeless. Profoundly disturbed by what she witnessed, Maida turned to art to process her trauma.
