A Philadelphia Community Forever Changed : NPR
Throughout the 1970s and 80s, the radical African-American moving organization had several dramatic meetings with the police.
With the kind authorization of Amigo Media
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tilting legend
With the kind authorization of Amigo Media
Throughout the 1970s and 80s, the radical African-American moving organization had several dramatic meetings with the police.
With the kind authorization of Amigo Media
On May 13, 1985, after a long dead end, the municipal authorities of Philadelphia abandoned a bomb on a house in a residential row. The home of Avenue Osage was the seat of the move of the African-American radical group, which had confronted the police several times since the group’s foundation in 1972.
The resulting fire killed 11 people – including five children and the group’s leader, John Africa – destroyed 61 houses and has torn a community.
In Let it burn the fire, A new film showing the Festival des Documents AFI, director Jason Osder tells the years of tension between the police, the move and the neighbors who ended with a tragedy.
The title of the film refers to the decision of the local authorities to let the fire engulf the complex without intervention.
Osder, assistant professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University, grew up in Philadelphia and was about the same age as the children who were killed in the fire.
“Those of us who are fortunate to have, in a way, traditional childhoods, we grow up in a certain way. And for most people, a time ago when this refuge is broken,” Osder told Neal Conan de NPR.
“The generation of my parents will always remember where they were when JFK died, but for me, it was moving fire.”
The catalyst of the incident occurred eight years earlier, in 1978, when a confrontation between the police and the move led to the death of a police officer. Nine members of the organization were imprisoned for the shooting; Move said that death was the result of a friendly fire.
After this incident, moving gathered and attacked the neighborhood to attract the attention of the authorities. The group has moved to a compound on Avenue Osage. In the months preceding the fire, the members of the group built a very intimidating structure and similar to bunker on their roof.
The 1985 moving fire killed 11, including five children, and destroyed 61 houses.
AP
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tilting legend
AP
The 1985 moving fire killed 11, including five children, and destroyed 61 houses.
AP
“He has holes to be pulled, and they have high terrain on the block,” explains Osder. “And the police come to believe that they are really in danger.“”
The police launched a massive operation aimed at withdrawing the group from its compound. After a confrontation of several days, with thousands of cycles of ammunition drawn, the police dropped explosives on the House Osage from a helicopter.
“I think there is a certain point of view which says that in fact, they wanted to provoke the action of the police and show the true nature of the system when they came.
“Are they expected that they come above that violently? Did they intend to die in the house? I do not know the answer to this. It is not impossible in fact, they did it.”
The organization of moving was sometimes characterized as a cult, as a group of return to nature – it was known to need a vegan diet – and sometimes as a fallout from black panthers.
Osder says that in his research, he found that the true nature of the group was much more complex.
“Back to-to-nature seemed a fairly appropriate description in the early 1970s, when they started, but things have gradually become more militant,” said Osder. “And in fact, almost all of these descriptions, the group would reject. They would reject the feedback and the liberation of blacks.”
“They were all the things we talked about, but they are also a family.”
The film exclusively uses archive images of local television coverage and court hearings to reconstruct the story, without comments or interviews. Osder spoke to Michael Ward, the only child to survive fire; at Ramona Africa, the surviving adult; and to one of the police officers. He finally decided not to use the images.
“There was a combination of realization that in these audiences, we had enormous potential to do something different and unique,” explains Osder. “And that, in fact, the things you want to do with the documentary interview were not so strong in the interviews we had drawn. They were not so revealing. People had not learned much. They had not changed much.”
