Day of Darkness, Night of Fire

It’s been just over 31 years since the worst day in Philadelphia’s history. It was the most difficult and frightening day for one local television news operation that stood up to the challenge, and upheld the highest standards of journalism under tremendous pressure. If you are old enough, and from Philadelphia, you probably know about MOVE. It’s been described as a back to nature cult lead by a man named Vincent Leaphart who called himself John Africa. They believed in revolution against authority. They ate raw fruits and vegetables. They didn’t use soap. Wouldn’t kill animals, even bugs. They wore long dredlocks. They believed John Africa was god.

The group’s first confrontation with the city happened in 1978 in a house in the Powelton Village neighborhood. The extended family of men, women and children moved into the house and started disrupting the neighborhood. They screamed their revolutionary message over a bullhorn. Some were seen carrying weapons. Mayor Frank Rizzo finally had police move in to arrest the MOVE members on weapons charges. A shootout with police resulted in the death of a police officer. A MOVE member was wounded, another unarmed MOVE member was beaten by police that was caught by news cameras. Children in the house were not hurt. Ten MOVE members went to prison on several convictions, including murder. The house was bulldozed. But MOVE didn’t go away.

What happened seven years later, on May 13, 1985 was far worse. Our coverage of that terrible day was the subject of a panel put together by the The Broadcast Pioneers here in Philadelphia. I was invited along with former WCAU-TV anchor Steve Levy, reporters Harvey Clark and Bill Baldini, photographers Pete Kane and Frank Goldstein, and field producer Tom Kranz. We had won the DuPont Award, a prestigious national journalism award for our coverage. I, and others, considered our news operation in the mid 1980s, the finest in the country. We hadn’t seen each other in years. We had gone on to other stations. Some of us were retired. But after just a few minutes together, I could feel the bond of that one day we all had in common. The memories came back into focus.

MOVE members, including seven adults and six children, had moved into another house in the early 1980s. This time on Osage Avenue in the black, working class neighborhood of Cobbs Creek. Neat rowhomes filled with families and people who had lived there for years. But the city let the same behavior fester. MOVE was screaming profanities from their bullhorn all day and night. Garbage and bugs and rats building up. Neighbors were desperate for help from the city. None came. Community leaders tried to reason with MOVE. No success. Reporter Harvey Clark and photographers Goldstein and Kane had spent the year leading up the confrontation digging and reporting on the growing problem. Talking with the neighbors. Working police sources. This was all allowed to happen by the city’s first African American mayor. Wilson Goode had been elected less than a year and a half earlier. That was just four years after the eight year administration of Mayor Frank Rizzo. The law and order former police commissioner who many African Americans didn’t consider someone who could make their lives better.

Harvey Clark was tipped off that there was going to be some kind of police action to remove MOVE from the house. On Mother’s Day, May 12, 1985, police ordered people living on the 6200 block of Osage Avenue to evacuate their homes for 24 hours. We started getting people into position to cover whatever the police were planning. Harvey managed to negotiate with a woman who lived at the end of the block to allow photographer Pete Kane to hide inside her house with a clear view of the front of the MOVE house. Harvey and Tom Kranz and other reporters and photographers got into position over night. No one could imagine what was going to happen as the sun rose the morning of May 13th.

We went on the air minutes before hundreds of police officers, led by Police Commissioner Gregor Sambor, on a bullhorn of his own, told the MOVE members to come out. Suddenly, police opened fire. I was in the control room speaking into the ears of anchor Steve Levy and Harvey Clark. The gunfire was deafening. Harvey and reporter Charles Thomas finally had to duck. For a few minutes, I was concerned that I was going to be responsible for getting a reporter shot on live television. Finally, the reporters were  moved a short distance by police. But Steve and Harvey stayed calm and cool and kept reporting. Police fired ten thousand rounds of ammunition into the house, including using a borrowed .50 caliber machine gun.

The day wore on. Police teams were trying unsuccessfully to break through each side of the MOVE house. Mayor Wilson Goode never left his office. He later said he watched what was happening on WCAU. Finally, after a day long standoff with no movement from inside the MOVE house, Police Commissioner  Sambor had the incomprehensible idea of dropping the military explosive C4 from a State Police helicopter onto a wooden bunker MOVE had built on the roof. Sambor was concerned they could have a high vantage point shooting location. He wasn’t concerned about the seven adults and six children inside the house. Also stored on the roof were cans of gasoline to power a generator. The C4 set the bunker on fire. Rather than put the fire out, Sambor told the Fire Commissioner William Richmond to let the bunker burn. It was about  5:30pm.

Then the unthinkable. The fire spread up and down the block and across the street. To the horror of everyone, but apparently not to the city officials in charge, the fire was allowed to get out of control before the Fire Department started putting water on the fire. Pete Kane recorded it all from his vantage point hidden in the house. I remember about 8:30pm, Bill Baldini was giving updates from the newsroom and reported 38 houses were on fire. I was shocked. I called down to the newsroom to make sure we were right. We were. At about the same time, we became very concerned about Pete Kane’s safety. For the second time that day, I thought someone I was responsible for was in danger of getting shot. I was concerned if police found an African American man in a house were he wasn’t suppose to be, they might shoot and ask questions later. My last phone call to Pete was, “Get out now.” He did.

The fire lit up the sky over West Philadelphia, raging for hours. In the middle of the hell, a police officer rescued one adult, Ramona Africa, and one child, Birdie Africa as they tried to run out through a flooded back alley. At some point overnight, the fire was finally put out. I flew over the smoldering scene the next day in a helicopter. It was staggering that this gaping wound in the middle of an American city, and the killing of six adults and five children, was the result of what was suppose to be an eviction.

Months afterwards, an independent MOVE Commission, held hearings in an attempt to find out how this could have happened. The mayor took full responsibility. The police commissioner, the fire commissioner, and the managing director came off as incompetent. The lack of planning and coordination and disagreement over, if and when, orders were given to put out the fire was just more maddening. The Commission found the city was basically grossly negligent. A grand jury was impaneled, but returned no criminal charges against anyone. Even though evidence showed no bullets were fired from inside the MOVE house. Sixty one homes were destroyed along with the lives of the hundreds of people who lost everything. Even the rebuilding of the neighborhood was a disaster. The developer ended up in prison. The homes had all kinds of structural problems. The block was never the same.

I also once again saw the impact this story had on the people who risked their lives covering it. At the Broadcast Pioneers panel, Harvey Clark said he believed it would never have happened if the people in that house were white. He talked about the hundreds of people who lost their homes to the fire. He told the story of how racial hatred came into his own home. In 1951, Harvey was six years old, and his sister was eight, when they moved into a house in all white Cicero, Illinois with their parents. He said that night four thousand people showed up at their house, and burned them out as police stood by and watched. He said the only person arrested in the incident was their family lawyer Thurgood Marshall, the future Supreme Court justice, who was arrested for inciting a riot. Harvey pointed out that no one was arrested for the MOVE disaster. Mayor Goode went on the be re-elected three years later. The police commissioner, fire commissioner, and managing director all retired with their pensions.

Pete Kane told the story of how he started working in WCAU’s mailroom and almost became a police officer before we hired him as a photographer two years before MOVE. Pete said he thought he could tell the stories of the city and the people who lived in neighborhoods just like his. He proved he pick the right profession as he stood steady and recorded what incompetent city officials did to his city. Pete said he was stopped and harassed by Philadelphia Police three times in the weeks after MOVE for the work he did. Pete was so shaken by what happen that day, that he moved his family out of the city.

Harvey told the panel audience he thought what happened at MOVE was racial, and he thought it could happen again today. Given the advances in police training, communication, and technology you would hope that wasn’t true. But think about the state of race relations between the police and the African American community. Think of the racial hatred being spewed by Donald Trump. Maybe our days of darkness and nights of fire are not over yet.

Editor’s Note: Some of the details of May 13th were refreshed by Producer Tom Kranz’s book “Live Shot: Journalistic Heroism in Philadelphia”. Tom spent the day in the middle of the action. His book pays tribute to the journalists at WCAU, but maybe more importantly, to all the victims on that darkest of days. Tom’s book is available at Amazon.com.