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This Issue 11/30/2006

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6221 Osage Avenue sits in a narrow, tree-lined, ghostly-quiet street bordered by snug brown brick row houses, many of them sporting plywood for windows and dangling white strands of Tyvek HomeWrap for exterior decoration. An eerie mixture of renewal and desertion hangs in the air: two lawn chairs frame a pot of blossoming red roses on one inviting porch, while across the road a beat-up mailbox gapes open next to a padlocked front door. 6221 is nearly indistinguishable from its neighbors, save for two small signs in front of the house informing passersby - in a supreme jolt of irony - that parking is reserved for the Philadelphia Police Civil Affairs unit.

The West Philadelphia home bears little resemblance to what it looked like on the afternoon of Monday, May 13, 1985, when a Pennsylvania state police helicopter dropped a satchel of high-grade plastic explosives on the building - the headquarters for a radical, back-to-nature organization known as MOVE. The subsequent explosion sent plumes of black smoke and fierce yellow-orange flames leaping into the air, which, along with a spate of gunfire from flak-jacketed Philadelphia policemen, killed six adults and five children and destroyed 61 neighborhood homes. That tumultuous day marked only the second time in American history - the 1921 Tulsa race riots being the first-that an aerial bombing had occurred on American soil.

The two decades since have proven that the roller coaster-like saga between MOVE and the city of Philadelphia is far from extinguished. MOVE members continue to live in West Philadelphia and to carry on their revolution, albeit in a more subdued manner than before. Homeowners from the 6200 blocks of Osage and Pine Streets are still locked in a battle with government officials to retain their homes and gain compensation for the losses they have incurred. Questions about accountability, injustice and racism linger unanswered in a city that many agree has tried to put the painful memories of May 13 and of the government's protracted struggle with MOVE behind them.

"Early on MOVE had demanded every right and privilege that comes with American citizenship while rejecting any responsibility to be lawful," says Philadelphia journalist and Temple professor Linn Washington, who covered MOVE extensively in the 1970s and '80s. "In terms of the city, you have an entity that reacted and reacted harshly without trying to address some of the underlying issues."

"This story is virtually forgotten," Washington adds. "It's sad in large part because there are people who are still suffering."