MOVE : an American religion

Author / Creator

Evans, Richard Kent, author

Available as

Physical

Summary

"This book is a religious history of MOVE, a small, mostly African American religious group devoted to the religious teachings of John Africa that emerged in Philadelphia in the early 1970s. MOVE i...

"This book is a religious history of MOVE, a small, mostly African American religious group devoted to the religious teachings of John Africa that emerged in Philadelphia in the early 1970s. MOVE is perhaps best known for the MOVE Bombing. In 1985, the Philadelphia Police Department-working in concert with federal and state law enforcement-attacked a home that MOVE people shared in West Philadelphia with hundreds of police officers and firefighters, tear gas, ten thousand rounds of ammunition, and improvised explosives. Most infamously, a police officer dropped a bomb containing C-4 explosives, which he had acquired from the FBI, from a helicopter onto the roof of the MOVE house. The bomb started a fire, which officials allowed to spread in hopes of burning MOVE people out of the house. Police officers fired upon MOVE people who tried to escape the flames. Eleven MOVE people died in the attack, including John Africa. Five of those who died were children. Based on never-before-seen law enforcement records and extensive archival and ethnographic research, MOVE: An American Religion reinterprets the history of MOVE from its origins in the late 1960s, its growth in the early 1970s, its conflicts with the United States government from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s, and its presence today. It is the first full-length academic study of MOVE since 1994 and is the first book to consider MOVE as a religion"--

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