Uncover - S20 "The Africas VS. America" E4: The Commissioner’s Gambit

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

Complaints from neighbours about MOVE’s lifestyle lead to increasingly violent clashes with police. One confrontation turns deadly, and by 1978, relations between MOVE and city authorities have reached a crisis point. The MOVE home in residential Powelton Village becomes the scene of a two-months-long starvation blockade, and the site of a stand-off with police that will end in blood, gunfire, and the arrest of nine members of MOVE, collectively charged with murder for the death of an officer.The Africas VS. America is nominated for a Webby! Vote for the series here.

Canadians care about what's happening in the world and in just 10 minutes, World Report can help you stay on top of it all. Join me, Marcia Young. And me, John Northcott, to get caught up on what was breaking when you went to bed and the stories that still matter in the morning. Our CBC News reporters will tell you about the people trying to make change. The political movements catching fire. And the cultural moments going viral.

Find World Report wherever you get your podcasts. Start your day with us. This is a CBC Podcast. Before we start, just a heads up. This episode includes disturbing content depicting violence and explicit language. Please take care while listening. MOVE founder John Africa and his philosophy came of age through a decade of great change in America, the 1960s. But that change had an umbilical connection to freedom struggles across the world,

movements connected by shared conditions, tactics, and demands. It's hard to make out, but that's Nelson Mandela. In the spring of 1964, Mandela is on trial with nine others. He's facing life in prison under South Africa's so-called Sabotage Act. And here he's saying, quote, I do not, however, deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness, nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment

of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation, and oppression of my people by the whites. At the time, Mandela is a high-ranking member of the nation's anti-apartheid political party, the African National Congress. He's also the leader of the group's armed wing, Mkondo Wisizwe, better known in English as Spear of the Nation. For three years, the Spear of the Nation has led a campaign of sabotage against the fascist

South African government. This includes public bombings, the use of landmines, and raids on government installations. Mandela refuses to mount a conventional defense at his trial, opting instead to deliver this three-hour statement. So, decades before becoming his country's president, before being beatified as one of history's most beloved men, here he now is, basically a terrorist, according to his nation's law. For decades, the ANC fought against white minority government is — basically a terrorist, according to his nation's law. For decades, the ANC fought against white minority government with strikes, boycotts,

and peaceful demonstrations. But as the state violence directed against them continued, the ANC decided the position of nonviolence was untenable. And this change in tactic can be attributed to a single moment. The big explosion came on March the 21st at Sharkville, a town near Johannesburg. For South Africa's Black population, the most hated aspect of apartheid is the passbook, the stark symbol of serfdom and indignity. The Sharpeville Massacre, where 69 peaceful protesters were killed and more than another 180 injured by police.

The police said afterwards that they had been attacked by the Negroes. However, subsequent inquiries disclosed that no warning shots had been fired, that many of the dead had been shot in the back. No warning shots have been fired, but many of the dead have been shot in the back. By the following year, Mandela, along with nearly 20 others, would officially commit themselves to revolutionary violence. At the trial, he explains his turn to violence by saying, quote, that as a result of government policy, violence by the African people had become inevitable. Mandela would be found guilty and would serve 27 years of that life sentence. Many of his compatriots would die in prison.

Others would hang. All for daring to answer a nation's violence with violence of their own. Now, Apartheid South Africa isn't Philadelphia, Nelson Mandela isn't John Africa, and the ANC isn't MOVE. But I've been thinking a lot about this speech from Mandela in the context of this particular chapter in the MOVE story. The claim that, quote, government policy had made violence by the African people inevitable.

And the questions that Nelson Mandela asks of us all. Who is it that we as a society actually allow to mount a meaningful defense? Who has the liberty of resorting to violence? For whom is it legitimate? And what exactly is it that distinguishes a terrorist from a liberator? I'm Matthew Amha, and this is the Africa's Versus America. Chapter 4, The Commissioner's Gambit. So where is the move house in relation to where we are now?

Where was the house where you were shooting? We're standing directly across from what was the MOVE compound. The MOVE compound was two three-story Victorian houses, 307, 309, North 33rd Street. I'm in Powhatan Village with Lynn Washington, where MOVE's first headquarters was located, about a decade before the police dropped a bomb on their home on Osage Avenue. Today, Lynn works as a professor and journalist. He's led news coverage locally on the MOVE beat for nearly half a century now. Getting a rush of what I thought was long-buried emotions.

It's a story that doesn't sleep, huh? Yeah, gosh, man, this has been a part of my life since, really since about 72, 73. Because this, um, not this apartment, but the one on the front side, that's my first apartment in Philadelphia. At this, Lynn points to a walk-up behind us. And when I became a full-time reporter for the Philadelphia Tribune in the fall of 1975, I was assigned a move beat.

The new guy, move it grossed out everybody else, and I'm still on the move beat. So I guess in some ways I'm on a move like them. I guess in some ways I'm on a move like them. Before he'd ever encountered move, Lynn knew of this local guy who'd take in stray dogs and walk them around the neighborhood. And one day, he finally made the connection. He was talking to one of his sisters, Louise James Africa. And I saw her talking, and after it was over, I went, who are you talking to? Well, that was John Africa. And I saw her talking and after it was over, I went, who are you

talking to? You know, that was John Africa. I'm like, that's John Africa? Your brother, Vince the Dog Man? Before he was known as John Africa, Vincent Leapheart was known around Powelton as Vinnie the Dog Man. These Victorian homes on North 33rd Street were the epicenter of move activities. It's where John Africa and his followers lived communally, in accordance with his guidelines, including his love of animals. This love for animals had them keeping stray dogs, so there would be like 30 or 40 dogs in there. Excrement in the yard. I mean, this place smelled like a pig pen. I'm telling you

firsthand from being out here for weeks and months on end, that embracement of all life included not killing insects and vermin. So they would compost. Now, to their credit, they were a little ahead of the times in terms of composting. So, you know, there was a lot of vermin here. So the majority of the residents were black people. And, you know, when I was there, like, interviewing them, they're sitting on their porch, and the rats were just hopping down the street. It's almost like, hey, but the black people who lived on Pearl Street were the ones who were the most impacted by Moo's lifestyle. At the time, there were roughly two dozen people living in the house.

As a rule of thumb, only members of the Moo family were allowed in the home. But there were occasional exceptions. Only members of the Move family were allowed in the home, but there were occasional exceptions. Joel Todd was a lawyer who worked on behalf of Move as an intermediary with the city through the 1970s. I, of course, had heard about them and read about them and knew a little bit about what was going on, but when I got out there and I got to the house, it was very primitive. The conditions were very primitive. There was no electricity in the house, no fridge or stove.

According to John Africa, anything that needed to be refrigerated or cooked wasn't designed for the human body. MOVE also rejected processed foods and relied on naturopathic remedies, especially the use of garlic to stave off colds and the flu. There was an odor of garlic permeating everything. MOVE also practiced natural childbirth. They rejected birth control, insisted on homeschooling, and forbade makeup, jewelry, body lotion, and haircuts. And you know that saying in the U.S. Army?

and haircuts. And you know that saying in the U.S. Army? We do more before 9 a.m. than most people do all day. Well, MOVE had one of their own. They said they did more by 6 a.m. than the U.S. Army did all week. MOVE members were in top physical condition. They could often be seen sprinting through West Philadelphia. They were said to run 10 miles each day

and practice calisthenics around the clock. Here's Consuela Africa. We did our push-ups. We ran dogs up until they started resting. I mean, we'd take our animals to give them exercise. We would run around an entire block at a full speed. We were strong. Strong. The move lifestyle was based on John Africa's guidelines,

the central tenet of which was to turn away from all elements of what they called the system and instead embrace natural law. John Africa, he was talking about nature and how we need to go back to applying ourselves to the natural law instead of applying ourselves to the systems law and man's law. Mo Africa was one of MOVE's earliest members. John Africa said that the law of life has no flaws. It's always right. And it's been here since water's been wet. Another tenet of the move philosophy was community activism. A day move like that at that point was, to me, was fun.

Debbie Africa lived in the Powhatan Village home. You know, it was just so much family and so much camaraderie. And it felt good because not only did we have the physical being and intimacy with each other as brothers and sisters, we also had the information, the knowledge that made us feel good and made us feel satisfied because it was just the wisdom. It was the truth. And on top of that, to feel like you are part of something that's going to help straighten out social ills in society.

Its members offered classes on John Africa's guidelines to the public. They offered care to people struggling with addiction. They ran anti-crime programs, helped neighbors to meet their rent, and served as a levy against what we now call gentrification. John Africa, he was a part of a collective that was renovating houses to try to be able to keep people of low and modest means in the community. So while MOVE did split opinion, for the most part in these earliest years, MOVE's neighbors believed them to be a force for good. More specifically, Powhatan residents understood that MOVE operated as a buffer

between them and former police commissioner and now mayor Frank Rizzo. and former police commissioner and now mayor, Frank Rizzo. They supported MOVE from the perspective of if Rizzo and the system gets away with crushing MOVE, then we're next. So it wasn't an embracement of their ideology. It certainly wasn't an embracement of their lifestyle. But it was seen as part of the effort to continue to push back on Frank Rizzo. Police brutality was just at outrageous levels every day, just random beatings. And MOVE members got their fair share of these beatings.

There was a pattern. It is impossible to describe a maniac, a profane, obscene. Move members got their fair share of these beatings. There was a pattern. It is impossible to describe a maniac, a profane, obscene, a pornographic freak without using a profane word. Motherfuckers. It would go something like this. Move would identify something to protest. Different categories of anything that we saw as against life, that was hurting life,

all the activities were going on as far as things like that. You know, demonstration against the police department, you know, when we would hear about a case where maybe the police had, you know, killed a youth, beaten them, or demonstrating against a puppy palace, circuses that would put electric shocks under elephants' feet, and that's what was making them rise up when people thought they were tricks. Members would arrive with placards and bullhorns and stand outside the business haranguing patrons and employees with invectives. So they had a whole boatload of MFs and this and that, and it was really almost somewhat absurd in some of these confrontations between the police and MOVE,

because they would start over MOVE swearing. And then the police would say, shut the F up, you can't curse in public. Lynn means that literally. In the state of Pennsylvania, you could be prosecuted under a disorderly conduct statute for using colorful language. Who the hell do you think you are, you rotten, lame efforts? So the police were swearing at Moose, Moose swearing at the police, and then they started fighting each other.

But the use of four-letter words was part of their weaponization in their various protests. Here's Mo Africa again. Police would show up. They would try to stop us from using our language. We would use words like anytime you abuse an animal, you're fucking over nature. And to fuck over nature, that's a motherfucking problem. John Africa's guidelines lay out the hypocrisy of America's moral panic over profanity pretty clearly. Quote, protecting your son against profanity and sending him off to Vietnam, screening out profanity on television and showing the massacre of Indians,

and watching, quote, bloodbaths in the Middle East as you sit back and get concerned about a four-letter word. For MOVE, police violence was profane. War was profane. Animal abuse was profane. Poverty was profane. And so their use of profanities was simply a way of identifying these elements of society for exactly what they were. So the city used the group's use of language to target MOVE members for arrest.

And the arrests are unrelenting. Between 1974 and 1976, police arrest MOVE members at least 400 times. And keep in mind, at its peak, there were only ever maybe 60 members. These MOVE cases are choking the local courts, and the city is spending inordinate amounts of government money to prosecute a slew of misdemeanor charges. So in effect, these two groups, MOVE and the city, are now engaged in a war of attrition. And MOVE uses this to its advantage. At home, MOVE holds mock trials,

where they rehearse the haranguing of prosecutors and judges. One of these mock trials was featured in a frontline documentary called The Bombing of West Philly. I have just as much right, and my brother got just as much right to speak as you. So what you doing arrogantly gaveling us down? Our freedom is in jeopardy, and we will do anything to protect that freedom. You cannot put any restrictions on our freedom.

Mr. Africa, this is not a forum for your political views. What is it? Do you understand that? Do you understand that I was brought here because of my beliefs, because of my views? In the courtroom, they reject the sanctity of the judicial process altogether. Being held in contempt is part of their plan. The courtroom offers them a captive audience in the bowels of the system. courtroom offers them a captive audience in the bowels of the system.

By the end of 1975, MOVE members were arrested so routinely that they started to bring food, water, and blankets to demonstrations in the likely event that they ended up in jail. Reporter Kitty Caparella saw it this way. There were these two forces. There was MOVE and there was Rizzo. And they were coming to a crescendo. They were the complete opposites. And you knew there was going to be this unbelievable clash at some point. So this one particular night... It's just after midnight, March 28, 1976,

and MOVE people are in good spirits. Our people were coming home from jail. Two members, including Mo Africa, have just gotten out of jail, part of the turnstile relationship they have with the city. Consuela Africa recalls preparing to welcome them home. So we were having a celebration. We prepared a feast for them. We were waiting for them to come home so we can embrace them

and show the love and warmth that we had, because Mo people are a loving family. It was at nighttime, and want that we had, because new people are a loving family. It was at nighttime, and when we got back, everybody was happy and jubilant and loud and, you know, hollering and having fun and being happy that we were back out of jail. But it's not long before the police arrive. They came out looking for a confrontation. The cops say they're here because of a noise complaint. They started swinging batons, breaking Jerry's arm.

Jerry was a big fella. He was about 6'6". Police would later tell the Philadelphia Inquirer that when they arrived, MOVE members began pelting them with bricks and bottles. MOVE would say the police were hitting them with such force, their nightsticks broken too. Janine Africa is inside the Powelton home when she hears the disturbance outside. It's now two in the morning. Janine Africa had a three-week-old baby. Came outside because she heard all the commotion.

I mean, you know, came outside with her baby in her arms. Janine would later tell a reporter that the cops bowled her over in order to get to her husband, Phil Africa. And in the process, she and her baby, Life Africa, were thrown to the ground. And his skull was crushed. Janine's family say that after the police left, they found her inside, in shock, holding her dead child. And in their haste, in their, you know, desperation to brutalize more people, one of the cops dropped their nightstick and their hat, which had his badge number on it.

And so my brother went out, he got the nightstick and he got the badge. And we kept this as evidence to show how— Move is desperate for the public to see this evidence. They invite members of the press and city officials to the Move home for dinner. Lucian Blackwell sat on the city council back in 1976. He would later tell a commission that he accepted the invitation to dinner because as a black councilman, he wanted to support constituents suffering from police brutality. After we had finished eating, Delbert Africa passed a note around that said the baby has arrived.

And it was then I realized that we were being set up for something. We went upstairs, two inquiry reporters there, and we saw, we were led into a dark room, and we saw what appeared to be the remains of a baby. And it was their contention that this baby had been killed in a police raid. There's a photo of this in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Lucian, his wife Jannie, and four other adults are gathered in a room of the MOVE house. And in front of them, on the floor, a box holding the body of an infant.

Ultimately, MOVE hopes for an inquiry into the baby's death. But the city demands that MOVE produce a birth certificate and surrender the body of Life Africa for an autopsy. But for MOVE, the very nature of an autopsy was a direct violation of their religious beliefs, a scientific process they believed to defile the dead. The birth certificate was also a non-starter, as MOVE didn't have any for any one of their children. In the end, MOVE wasn't able to meet the city's demands, and so the city refused to conduct an investigation.

For the year that followed Life Africa's death, MOVE and the city would remain entangled in a bureaucratic dance, with street-level skirmishes. MOVE would even file a $26 million lawsuit against the city for what they called systemic harassment. But the suit is dismissed. And so that was it. MOVE now believed the city and their police department were not simply interested in disenfranchising the group, in tying them up in the courts or through petty arrests,

but that they were now the subjects of an extermination campaign. We know that Rizzo hates Blacks. We know that Rizzo loves killing Black babies, killing Black people. We prepare for him and we're waiting for him. We told him that he come out here to kill us. We're leaving the front gate open. We're leaving the door open.

And there was no going back. So just as Nelson Mandela had in the 1960s, once all alternate forms of resistance had been exercised, this is where we see MOVE come to decide that it was time for them to pursue their own liberation on different terms. That is, through violence. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs.

And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. now, wherever you get your podcasts. May 20th, 1977, was the day that MOVE decided we weren't taking any more beatings, we weren't taking any more babies being killed, we weren't taking any more abuse from the Philadelphia police. This is Debbie Africa, John Africa's niece, and one of MOVE's original members.

From the Philadelphia cops, we were not taking any more of their back alley beatings or behind the closed doors harassment. MOVE has come to the conclusion that a tactical reassessment is in order. So that's the day we made a statement to the city of Philadelphia with bullhorns and letting them know that this time, if you want to beat somebody, you're going to do it out in the open. If you want to try to kill somebody, you're going to have to do it out in the open for the whole world to see. MOVE members build a platform in front of the Powelton home. And this becomes a stage for members now in full military dress. They're wearing body suits, tactical belts, black beanies.

In their hands are firearms, mostly long guns. Over the course of the next several hours, members of the organization take turns speaking on the platform. Here's Delbert Africa. If the police come in here with their hands, we'll use our hands. If they come in here with clubs, we'll use clubs. But if they come in here shooting and killing our women and children and our men, we will shoot back in defense of our lives. In photos, you can see him, Janet, In photos, you can see him, Janet, Janine, Carlos, Sue. They're all here.

And gathering around them are local journalists, police, and neighbors. Philadelphia Daily News reporter Kitty Caparella was among the growing crowd outside the home that day. The kind of crazies that they were thought to be, the kind of crazies that they were thought to be. They were all in their uniforms of fatigues and berets and guns. Her reporting was particularly hostile towards MOVE. MOVE was like North Korea, frankly, you know. They were kind of a menace to the neighborhood. You know, they were kind of a menace to the neighborhood.

I do remember them out there with weapons and screaming and yelling and threatening everybody. Bill Baldini was there too. He was a reporter with WCAU-TV. I never really felt scared. I thought they were just trying to make a point. I wouldn't make the point that way with a gun, but it did irritate the cops, no doubt about it. And they seemed very happy with that. Now, those guns? Move maintains they were purely for show.

Here's Sue Africa. We came out with a strategy. There was no firing pins in any of those weapons. None. And that's why we were never charged with possession of a gun, the people that were in there. We were charged with possession of an instrument of crime. If nothing else, MOVE understands the power of spectacle and aesthetics.

The free-form dreads, the Wrangler jeans and shirtless bodies, and now the uniforms and berets and guns. I mean, you can imagine it. A group of gun-toting revolutionaries in residential Philadelphia, essentially declaring a Mau Mau-like rebellion in plain view of the public. It was a direct challenge to the authority of Frank Rizzo. In the days following Move's front porch demonstration, the police issue arrest warrants for a number of Move members on weapons charges. Then the city issues an eviction notice. But Move refused to evacuate their home.

Instead, they barricaded themselves on the property. And then they built a stockade around the properties. It looked almost like medieval. Police have orders to arrest any MOVE people seen leaving the home. So it was pretty much a standstill as far as that goes. I mean, it was just on the platform and, you know, in the house, on the platform, in the house. That's pretty much as far as we went and around our property. Here's reporter Bill Baldini again.

It was a standoff. I mean, it was like an armed camp. You know, it was like the Alamo or something. It was crazy. You know, their beliefs were very strong. They seemed to feel that they were absolutely right about everything, and they were willing to defend their rights one way or another. On the other hand, you had the city trying to figure out what to do with these people without going in shooting. But as time went on, you could see the patience waning.

As the city's patience waned, rumors about what was going on inside the MOVE house grew, including that MOVE had acquired military-grade weaponry. Here's Ramon Africa speaking with a reporter for Channel 3 KYW out of Philadelphia. There's been talk that there are explosives in this house. Is there any truth to that? That's only people's, you know, hallucination

because they have not been inside this house, so they would not know what is in this house. What is in this house is the strategy of giant Africa that is very explosive. And while a number of neighbors remain friendly to the move cause, the progressive oasis of Powelton Village is by no means an indicator of the general sentiment in the city. For that, there was the media. With a few exceptions in the black press,

many in black Philadelphia saw little distinction between the media, the police, and Frank Rizzo. If you ask Mike Africa Jr., the relationship between Rizzo and the press was as simple as this. Man, they were his buddies. The local media? Shit. The police, the politicians, and the media. They're all cut from the same cloth at that time in this city.

By the time of the standoff, Frank Rizzo is at the height of his power. And unofficially, he's got his own press corps helping him to entrench that power. This is from a documentary called Amateur Night at City Hall, the story of Frank L. Rizzo. I know that I sell newspapers. the story of Frank L. Rizzo. I know that I sell newspapers. I know that the press considers me a guy that they enjoy printing and writing, and that's okay with me.

The press often refer to MOVE as a cult. The group and its members are described in animalistic terms, portrayed as uncivilized and compared with rats and monkeys. Here's Frank Rizzo again, speaking with WCAU-TV. That moldy group that look like they need a bath, the day that they control this city or the country, then we're in trouble. They're a bunch of radicals. Through the months of the standoff,

the stories in the press would become so absurd, it was reported that MOVE were looking to acquire a nuclear weapon. Yeah, a nuke in residential Philadelphia. They manufactured time bombs, collected an arsenal of rifles, handguns, and explosives powerful enough to level a city block, and even attempted to get an atomic bomb. That's Kitty Caparella again, reading from one of a number of stories on MOVE's alleged conspiracy to acquire nuclear weapons.

And so MOVE is contorted into a criminal monstrosity, somehow uncivilized and foolish, but also sophisticated criminal masterminds. One of the things that the MOVE people had done was they built a tunnel from the house and out their basement into the basement of the dry cleaners on Palton Avenue. And so they could kind of leave the house at night and then come back, even though supposedly they were under surveillance 24 hours. That claim she's making, it wasn't true. But the speculation still took hold.

So 10 months into the standoff... We're going to put the blockade in. We're going to shut off all utilities. There'll be not a fly get through. Frank Rizzo makes an attempt at an endgame. So he instituted a starvation blockade where he sealed off this whole neighborhood so the people who live here had to actually have passes,

like South Africa, to be able to get in and out of their houses. These would be Frank Rizzo's terms until MOVE agreed to give up their home. This was the first group attempt to get food to the MOVE members since the blockade went up about a month ago. Carrying dry goods and water, a group of 60 people met three blocks from MOVE headquarters. Well, we're prepared to be arrested. We're not armed with anything but food and water. We don't intend to have any physical contact unless it's necessary, but we intend to go over the barricade.

They're treating them like animals. Nobody barricade anybody that's from human beings. You do animals like that. Police had set up a perimeter around the neighborhood, but there was an extra barricade set up around the MOVE property itself. So through the worst of the blockade, MOVE survived in part due to the patronage of neighbors. You heard a couple of them speaking there with a reporter from a local affiliate of NBC News. They brought wood in. They brought bottles of water.

They brought food every day. They were just throwing them up on a platform. Because they saw that what this system was doing, this government, the police, you know, Oreso and all his stormtroopers, what it was doing to us was wrong, and they were not about to do that. The negotiation was simple. Walt Palmer is working as a negotiator for the city of Philadelphia through the standoff, doing what he can to help mediate peace talks between the two sides. MOVE wanted to exist and didn't want to be bothered. They didn't want to be harassed.

The city wanted them to deconstruct their site and stop the harassment and or nuisance that their neighbors complained about. The police wanted to enforce any violations, health codes, housing codes. Move was intractable. Just go away. Leave us alone. Let us do ourselves. Let us build our compound. Let us run our dogs. Walt says if authorities had their way, MOVE would simply leave the city for good, maybe set up on a farm somewhere outside of town.

But that was a non-starter for MOVE. The police wanted to make sure that no matter what happened in these talks, that MOVE would have to submit itself to a legal process, which they were opposed to. After more than a year, the city was no closer to forcing MOVE out of the home, and the group's resolve was beginning to wear on officials. Turns out, maintaining a starvation blockade was an expensive undertaking. It had cost the administration $3 million and counting. Much of it paid to cops working overtime.

So in the end, it was the city who blinked first. We were able to get some headway because MOVE said, OK. Won't go back and say, look, if we can get our brothers and sisters who are in jail now, in state prison here, MOVE members, if we can get them released, we'll then submit to going down, getting pictures, going back home. Remarkably, the city agreed. But there was a catch. Two, actually.

First, MOVE had to agree to open up their home for inspection. MOVE agreed to this, and the city's inspectors found nothing. No explosives, no nukes, no tunnels. The second catch was that these negotiations were conditional on MOVE agreeing to vacate their home within 90 days. conditional on MOVE agreeing to vacate their home within 90 days. MOVE did agree, but only if they could find foster care for all of their animals in time. When that didn't happen, MOVE asked for an extension, which the city refused.

And Frank Rizzo readied his troops for eviction. The police will be in there to drag them out by the backs of their necks. There will be a confrontation this time. There will be no barricades. I don't know. It's up to them whether there's no barricades, Mike. They're going to be taken by force if they resist. No question about that. Children or not. The complexion of the long-standing stalemate changed radically

when hundreds of helmeted police showed up at 3 a.m. to begin preparation for an all-out assault. At 3.30, 33rd Street was closed to traffic. Moved supporters in the area scrambled to public telephones to spread the word. At 6.10 a.m., Mayor Rizzo finally, after 15 months of confrontation, used the force he'd threatened all along. In came a bulldozer and a slow demolition began. force he'd threatened all along. In came a bulldozer and a slow demolition began. The stockade around the compound, which for months kept police from the doorstep, was soon rubbled. MOVE's PA system broadcast the cries of babies inside,

heard over the rumble of heavy equipment as rats and dogs ran from the house. Local anchor Pat Warren described it this way, quote, I think it's safe to say that the rats use more common sense than the people inside the house. The rats ran when the fence came down. And as I perceived it while watching this drama unfold, MOVE gave its dogs more of a chance than it gave their own children. It's now August 8th, 1978, day 90 of the city's 90-day deadline, almost 15 months since the standoff began.

Murray Dubin is a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He's late to the scene, so he starts knocking on doors, looking for a bird's-eye view of the action. I don't remember what the second house I knocked on or the third, but they were students and they were in a second floor apartment and they said sure. He's with his colleague, cameraman Bill Steinmetz. So Bill and I found the window facing Pearl Street and sat on the floor and looked out the window. And Bill got his camera stuff ready.

And we just waited and waited and waited. As they wait, Walt Palmer makes his way down to Powelton, where he encounters police commissioner Joseph O'Neill. And I asked O'Neill to let me go inside the house to see if I could talk to them to get them to come out. He wouldn't do it. He said, no. He called me and said, take this bullhorn and tell them to surrender.

I said, what's wrong with you? You want us to bump your head on the bedpost? Tell them to surrender. I ain't telling nobody to surrender. You all done made your minds up? You got your guns pointed at each other? And eventually he said, Palmer, come over here. He said, go in there and talk to him.

I mean, deep down inside, he wanted a resolution. All the cops were saying, please, if there's any way you can get us out of this. I said, I can't make them. All I can do is try. So I went into the building. By this time, police have made their way into the kitchen

and have drilled holes into the floor for a better view of what's going on in the basement where Move has now taken shelter. They wouldn't come out. So I went back outside. And then a few minutes, I tried again. I said, let me take the babies. Let me take the women. I tried a third time and couldn't. And with that, firefighters turn on their deluge guns.

MOVE members would later describe trying to shelter children from the force of the water rushing into the basement, knocking bricks off the walls and rising quickly. Davida Johnson, known as Dee Dee, was a supporter of MOVE who ended up in the basement that day. She remembers lifting children as high as she could. They was pouring water in the house. The water might have been here to me, but we had kids that was there that where the water was like going over their heads in a way and trying to keep them from, like, not getting drowned down there. They dumped about 200,000 gallons of water

in the basement, and the water was up to their noses. And then the bullets started flying. The first shot came from that building there, this apartment right here. At this, Lynn gestures over his shoulder to an upper floor unit in an apartment block on 33rd, just across the street from where the move house stood. Because, you know, I heard it and I looked back this way. I saw the people who were there. They turned around and they started looking that way. Cops, journalists, witnesses, a number of

people in the crowd on the street turn to look up at the apartment. And then everybody looks back and then the shooting starts into the basement. This tape you're hearing is from the scene that day. Walt Palmer was standing in front of the move house when the shootout begins. And I'm watching them empty the pistols. Now, they didn't do that until I heard a shot, what I thought was a shot behind me. And once I heard that noise, I said, holy shit, I hit the ground because I knew all hell would break loose. And then when I finally got a chance to get up and run behind the bus, damn bullets were hitting

out the wall, ricocheting. I said, Jesus Christ Almighty. Bob Hurst is a cop positioned up against the house. I seen his face, Chucky Africa. He popped out. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Went down, back in again. And I saw a Ruger.22-250. And I was taken aback by it because that weapon was designed for police. Chuck is the youngest of the Adult Move members, only just 18. by it because that weapon was designed for police.

Chuck is the youngest of the Adult Move members, only just 18. When they started shooting, people thought that they were shooting from behind us. They weren't. The 2250 is so powerful. It goes into hydrostatic shock in that it's about 4,000 feet per second. So it was breaking the sound bearer right when it was going over their heads and they thought that they were firing from behind. It wasn't. Hurst says MOVE fired the first shot and they fired it from the basement.

It only sounded like it had come from somewhere else. This opinion of Hurst's would become the city's official explanation. So I asked Walt Palmer again about that first shot. Had to be from cops and or a provocateur, but it certainly didn't come from the move. Consuela Africa is in the basement. When the bullets came, I literally saw the sparks fly past my face. Literally saw sparks. Debbie Africa, too. It was just shots fired, people screaming.

They were shooting down on us in the floor. Police were just shooting into the windows. There was police officers flush up against the building. They were shooting. They were dropping smoke grenades in as well as tear gas When they threw the tear gas in there, I was like, oh god What do I do now? Because once the tear gas hit you couldn't talk you couldn't see you couldn't hear nobody

I had each in my arms and I remember remember saying, oh, God, oh, Lord, this is it. And it's just a chaotic scene. You know, the firefighters had hoses, and they're now getting injured with gunfire. The police officers are getting injured. Hoses are going every which way. There's a law in the shooting, and some more shooting comes. And then there's a law, and it's almost like surreal in terms of the silence.

Smoke and tear gas are billowing out of the basement. It's worth noting that before the siege began, Police Commissioner O'Neill had consulted with a local doctor about the possible effects of using tear gas on children. In the chaos, Officer James Ramp, a 23-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department, is shot in the neck. News footage from the day shows a number of police officers dragging Ramp through the firefight into the safety of an armored truck.

But it's too late to save him. By the time the shooting stops, 16 others, police officers and firefighters, are injured. That's when firefighters start pumping more water into the basement. And it's the rising tide that finally forces move out of the home. Two women came out initially, and they're, you know, holding children according to the news, you know, that MOVE used their children as human shields.

No, they were trying to keep the kids from being drowned. Debbie Africa is among the women to come out first. I had to feel my way up the steps. By the time they got out, they took my baby from me, and then we were arrested. I didn't see what happened with anybody else. I just closed my eyes because I felt that I would hurt my daughter more if I fought to try to keep her. And I just had to let her go, and it was just one of the worst things that ever happened to me in my life. Others follow.

Myself and Yann were the last women to come out. When I was coming out the basement, I saw them literally beating Eddie about his testicles. Literally. It was vicious. Walt Palmer is watching the surrender carefully. The pavement is soaked from the deluge guns. The smell of gunpowder lingers in the air.

There are naked children coming out of the basement and into the street, their eyes stinging from the tear gas still pouring out of the house. So much tear gas, Consuela wondered if she'd ever see again. It's a hot day too, so everyone's sweating. And Walt knows emotions are running high. Chucky came out, and I went over to Chucky, and he's up there home screaming, cussing at a cop, and the cop's got his gun out and put it in his ear.

I said, put that, what's wrong with you? You want to assassinate him and live in cover? Okay. I said, Chie, shut up. I started cussing at him again. He shot in the shoulder. While Walt is trying to diffuse the situation with Chuck, Delbert makes his way out through a basement window on Pearl Street. He's the last to emerge.

He's shirtless, and his hands are up as he walks toward waiting police, including Officer Lawrence DeLisi. DeLisi would later tell a filmmaker that he ordered Delbert to get on the ground at least three times. And when Delbert ignored those orders, DeLisi started to wonder if it was a trap. There's a photograph of this moment, Delbert with his arms extended as though nailed to a cross.

He's standing before two police officers. One, Officer Joseph Zagami, is preparing to strike with a helmet he's holding in his right hand. The other, Officer Diolisi, with the butt of his shotgun raised towards Delbert. One rifle butt cracked his skull. The other one cracked his jaw. I mean, just vicious. Walt pauses when I ask him about this moment.

He's certain that he saved Chuck's life that day. But Delbert's beating? I was there. I saw it. I couldn't get to him fast enough. With every step of the way, including the final act today, the police used commendable restraint, and it was done for many reasons,

most of all because of the children who are present today. The police probably would have been legally within their rights to have, subsequent to the shooting of Officer Ramp, stormed the house and killed all of the 12 people in that basement. That's District Attorney Ed Rendell speaking to media shortly after the raid. At that same press conference, Police Commissioner Joseph O'Neill, standing beside his predecessor Frank Rizzo, responds this way to a reporter's questions

about police tactics. But I've had it up to here with individual reporters who are constantly our adversaries. Constantly. And I think when you go out and you talk to these people and stir them up and try to find out who did what where and all that, that you're being totally unfair to the police of this community and to the people of this community. A reporter for NBC then asks the commissioner if the police were overzealous and quote, the heat of the moment.

I know of one instance where one of the MOVE members came out the window with a cartridge case in one hand, a clip, and with a knife in the other, and where he was hit on the top of the head with a steel helmet and was taken into custody, if that's what you're referring to, Bill. If that's overzealous, so be it. The MOVE member he's describing was Delbert Africa. The move member he's describing was Delbert Africa. It was a lie. There was no cartridge, no knife. But by then, the city and police had already conceived of the story they would tell of that day.

A story of bravery, discipline, honor, and sacrifice on the part of the police department. The shootout would make the front page of the Philadelphia Daily News the next morning, with a story reported by Kitty Caparella. Its headline was, quote, Oh My God, They Shot a Cop. Here's co-anchor Pat Warren for WPVI Philadelphia TV News. There had been much concern on the part of many people that the police would make a violent assault on the MOVE members. As it turned out, the police acted with precision and restraint. But the truth was, the police didn't act with precision and restraint. Remember that pair of reporters with the Philadelphia Inquirer, Murray Dubin and Bill Steinmetz?

Well, they had been watching the whole clearly see Delbert Africa on the ground. He's unarmed, he's defenseless, and he's unconscious. Officer Zagame drags his body by the dreadlocks to the nearest curb where two cops begin to stomp him in unison. You can see two other officers join in. They spread his legs and kick him in the genitals. Delbert's head is bouncing off of the concrete. Seeing this video feels like I was watching a man die.

At that point, we become aware that the police see us in the window. And we're not sure they know we're the press. So we're a little nervous about that. We don't want anybody shooting at us. So we move from the window. Bill's afraid they're going to confiscate his film. If you're ass they are. Let them come up to up here. What can I do up here? Take our film. He can't take my mouth, can he? This is a time when they're still using film,

and he takes the film out of his camera and puts it in his boot. It is often said that the LAPD's beating of Rodney King in 1991 was the first major example of police brutality against a black man to be caught on tape. But Steinmetz, he smuggled this tape of Delbert Africa's beating out to the world nearly 13 years before that night in Los Angeles. Delbert Africa would be catapulted

into the international spotlight, immortalized in many ways as one of America's first viral victims of police brutality. And the original story that told the public of a police operation that ended with officers showing great restraint was now suddenly untenable. It wasn't long before the police union chief was back in the press making a statement. Quote, they should have shot the goddamn bomb, he said. Quote, and then there would have been no trouble today. So the city went from denying the fact of Delbert's beating

to reappropriating it, framing him as a man lucky to have been arrested alive. The sad part of it is that this incident is not yet over. There will still be misguided voices in the community seeking clemency for these criminals. Criminals who want to live a lifestyle that defies the laws of our society. People who live in a civilized community

must abide by the laws which govern everyone else. Out of respect for the sacrifice of Policeman Ram, we cannot allow this to happen. This is Mayor Frank Rizzo delivering a press conference at City Hall just after the raid. We have seven more to apprehend, and then the trial and the rest of the action, so that we can put this revolutionary movement out of business once and for all. A reporter asks Rizzo if he expects this to be the end of MOVE,

to which Rizzo replies, quote, The only way we're going to end them is when the ones that are responsible get that death penalty back and put them in the electric chair, and I'll pull the switch. That's when I'm sure they'll not be around. Next time on the Africa's vs. America, the trial of the so-called Move 9. I'll never forget the judge says, you've been charged with murder. I said, what? Murder?

I'm like, why would I be charged with murder? Who done murdered? You've been listening to the Africa's Versus America from CBC Podcasts and Confluential Films. The show is written and produced by me, Matthew Amah, and Jessica Lindsay. Our story editor is Damon Fairless. And our producer is Alina Ghosh. Sound design by Evan Kelly. Emily Connell is our coordinating producer.

Emily Mathieu is our fact checker. Our senior producer is Willow Smith. Consulting producers for Confluential are Tommy Oliver and Keith Giannette. WPVI, Channel 6, Philadelphia. Let the Fire Burn, a film by Jason Osder. NBC News, Howard Zinn. Executive producers for CBC Podcasts are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak. Arif Noorani is the director of CBC Podcasts.

If you're enjoying the show, I'd like to recommend another CBC Podcast. FrontBurner is a daily news podcast that covers one major news story every morning in about 20 minutes. Thanks for listening. Tune in next week for an all-new episode of the Africa's vs. America, where you can binge the whole series by subscribing to our channel on Apple Podcasts. Just to cbc.ca slash podcasts.