Editing MOVE Organization (section)

== Osage Avenue ==

By 1985, MOVE members had established a new headquarters at 6221 Osage Avenue in West Philadelphia's Cobbs Creek neighborhood. Neighbors complained about the same issues that had plagued Powelton Village: loudspeaker broadcasts, accumulated garbage, and behavior they found threatening. The city obtained warrants for the arrest of MOVE members on various charges. MOVE fortified the house, building a bunker on the roof. Mayor W. Wilson Goode, Philadelphia's first African American mayor, faced a crisis that would define his tenure. After failed attempts at negotiation, he authorized police action to execute the warrants.<ref name="boyette"/>

On May 13, 1985, police surrounded the MOVE house and began an assault that would end in catastrophe. Police fired thousands of rounds of ammunition into the house. When MOVE members did not surrender, police dropped a bomb—an improvised explosive device made from C-4 and Tovex—onto the rooftop bunker. The bomb ignited a fire. Firefighters, ordered not to extinguish the flames, watched the fire spread. By the time firefighting began, the blaze was out of control. Eleven MOVE members died, including John Africa and five children. The fire destroyed sixty-one homes in the surrounding neighborhood. The only adult survivor, Ramona Africa, was arrested and later convicted of riot and conspiracy.<ref name="anderson"/>