Burning down the house : MOVE and the tragedy of Philadelphia /

Two aberrations of American society met May 13, 1985, when the police and judicial structure of Philadelphia bombed and burned the fortifications of the MOVE revolution, whose belligerent commitment to attacking the social, hygienic, economic, and political norms of society had made them anathema to their community and city. The conflict cast favorable light on none of the participants. Anderson and Hevenor (University of Pennsylvania) compiled this detailed account of the background, the violent confrontation, and the following trials. The book documents the difficulty the political system had in managing dissenters who denied the assumptions of the political system. Well indexed, but without footnotes, the book quotes extensively from the courtroom transcripts and from news coverage. It is a compelling tale and a revealing case study, a thorough account of what should never happen. Recommended for public libraries and academic libraries, community college level up.-J.H. Smith, Wake Forest University

This more balanced account of the May 1985 siege and bombing of the black militant MOVE organization in Philadelphia follows on the heels of Margot Harry's Attention MOVE! This Is America (Booklist 83:1489 Je 1 87), an emotional, highly subjective indictment of black mayor Wilson Goode's handling of the incident. Both books refute the claims of incompetence made by city officials by emphasizing the ruthlessness and efficiency of the police tactics, especially the helicopter bombing of MOVE headquarters and the resulting fire that destroyed much of the neighborhood. One of the values of this study is that it brings to light much-needed background information about the MOVE affair. In particular, the authors examine the origins of the organization and the rise of its charismatic leader ``John Africa''; trace the group's extensive history of battles with the authorities; and review the long campaign mounted by the neighborhood to get the MOVE members evicted. Anderson and Hevenor bring both exhaustive research and an objective clarity to a controversial and tragic incident. PLR. 974.8'1104 MOVE (Organization) / Black nationalism Pennsylvania Philadelphia / Afro-Americans Pennsylvania Philadelphia / Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) Race relations / Public relations Pennsylvania Philadelphia Police [OCLC] 87-5482

Two Quaker City journalists here draw on interviews, eyewitness accounts, police records and trial transcripts to recreate the neighborhood tragedy that shocked Philadelphia and the nation on May 13, 1985. They present that day as the climax of clashes between MOVE, a small group of black ``revolutionaries'' quartered in a West Philadelphia rowhouse and the police they'd taunted as representative of the white establishment. The meaning of the acronym MOVE, according to the authors, never has been clarified. They maintain that an aborted 1978 confrontation led to the 1985 shootout, when a police helicopter dropped a military-type bomb on MOVE's fortified rooftop, and the resulting fire destroyed some 60 neighborhood houses, killing 11 MOVE members, including babies. The authors also cover the 1986 trial of the sole MOVE survivor, Ramon Africa, in a book that underscores the racism that shook a city's political foundations. Photos. (June 1) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

An account of the violent end of a revolutionary group's attempt to take over part of a Philadelphia neighborhood, when Mayor Wilson Goode ordered that a series of bombs be dropped on the offenders, killing them and their children. The word ""tragedy"" in the subtitle seems excessive, although it is certainly a grotesque and sad tale involving the deaths of minors. Anderson and Hevenor include minute data about the children's wounds in the most pedantic police-reporter style. They are also tediously thorough about the exact arms that each Philadelphia cop carried into the fray. A tragedy, in one sense, features a great person with a fatal flaw, but it would be hard to find anything sympathetic about the MOVE group: they were evenhanded in their hatred of all humans. They referred to black Mayor Goode as ""Nigger Willy."" In court, one addressed her own lawyer as a ""Jew coward."" They amplified extraordinary irrational and obscene messages to their neighbors and to the city's cops: ""The white cop's wife would get a nigger and the nigger would fuck his wife and daughter and get the white cop's money and be riding around in the big boat that the cop bought."" Many of these speeches are quoted verbatim, until the reader feels supersaturated with the rhetoric. MOVE did have some vague goals, such as not following the dictates of a ""bunch of hemorrhoid-ridden old men in Washington, D.C."" The reason for its rebellion was that ""if they think that they had control over you, they could control your bowel movement, sexual drive, and all that."" Although it goes on too long, the present book is a compilation of all the data that most readers will want (or need) to know about what happened in the Philadelphia bombing. The authors strenuously avoid taking sides in the arguments of whether the bombs should have been dropped, or if Goode erred. In this case, however, impartiality may not have been a virtue. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.