May 8, 2017 • 35 mins
The MOVE organization is often labeled as a black liberation group or a black power group, but it’s more complex than that. After a protracted, contentious relationship with Philadelphia police, MOVE’s home was bombed in 1985.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. So our
show has a general rule of thumb. We've talked, we've
(00:21):
alluded to it relatively recently when it comes to the
more recent past. For the most part, we talked about
history that's roughly, very roughly the nineteen sixties and earlier. Yeah. Yeah,
we want to focus on things that chunk of our
listeners did not personally live through and have individual memories of. Uh.
(00:41):
And it also helps us to focus a little farther
in the past because we're able to take a broader
perspective a lot of the time and find multiple perspectives
on things so that we can compare those and get
a like a broader picture of what actually happened. UM.
Our line in the Santa's farther back. But it's very
similar reasons to the ask Historians subreddit, which has a
(01:04):
twenty year rule about what's acceptable to ask about in
the subreddit. Uh. That is a great resource, by the way,
which A're gonna link to you in the show notes.
So even though our line in the sand is farther back.
It's very similar to reasoning, the reasoning to how they
frame it. Sometimes, though, we get a lot of request
for something that is from more recent history, but not
(01:25):
necessarily something that listeners are overwhelmingly likely to personally remember.
And that's the case where we are talking about today.
In five following a lengthy standoff, the Philadelphia police bombed
a residential building that was home to the move organization.
This caused a fire that burned down more than sixty
homes and eleven people were killed. I had never heard
(01:49):
of this until it's thirtieth anniversary and got a lot
of mainstream media coverage, and that coverage prompted a lot
of requests for an episode, which we both mostly responded
to you by saying, this is a little more recent
than we normally talk about. But then a year later
we got another wave of requests for an episode, so
(02:12):
anticipating another wave in the anniversary of this year, we
decided to put it on the calendar. Uh And even
though folks who grew up in Philadelphia or who have
studied or been part of relevant fields of study and
social movements and that sort of thing are likely to
remember this I never heard of. This has been a
(02:32):
common enough refrain in May for the last couple of
years that it seems worth it to devot an episode. Yeah.
Articles about the Move bombing since his thirtieth anniversary have
often pigeonholed the organization as a black liberation group or
a black power group, but this is at best a
partial description. While the organization is revolutionary and its members
(02:56):
are and have been predominantly black, the Move organization overlaps
with other movements and philosophies as well, sometimes in ways
that can seem really contradictory. Articles from past decades are
far more likely to call MOVE a back to nature, primitivist,
or counterculture group. To be clear, it is not at
all unusual for an organization that's connected to racial justice
(03:20):
or any social issue really to have a platform that
touches on other issues that might not seem to be
related at first glance. Sometimes this is because issues are
interconnected in a way that doesn't immediately seem obvious. But
the Move organization's philosophies are disparate enough that they're often
described in words like uncategorizable, with some commentators going so
(03:44):
far as to suggest that it is a deliberate effort
to be hard to pin down. Even the name MOVE,
which is normally written in all caps, doesn't stand for anything,
even though it is written that way, and a lot
of these contradictory philosophies and p actuses were at the
root of ongoing disputes between Move and its Philadelphia neighbors
(04:05):
in the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties. Part of moves
general philosophy is that the system which encompasses industry, big business,
the government, the military, etcetera. Is toxic. It's a corrupting,
abusive force that is poisoning the planet and society in
pursuit of money. Life, on the other hand, is sacred.
(04:28):
God and nature are the sources of life, and the
natural law which governs all life is universally applicable to everyone.
Another core belief among MOVE members is that by revolutionizing
themselves through the guidelines left by founder John Africa, they
can revolutionize the world and ultimately end problems like homelessness, racism,
(04:49):
drug addiction, HIV and crime. This personal revolution has some
parallels with the Back to Nature Movement. Members eat raw food,
they avoid drugs and alcohol. They advocate for things like
animal rights, and clean air and water technology is seen
as harmful, with members going so far as to use
wood stoves for heat and to break up the sidewalk
(05:11):
adjacent to their home to restore the connection to the land.
Members also live collectively in communal living situations, all adopting
the surname Africa after John Africa. Based on this focus
on the sanctity of life, it may seem that the
next logical step is non violence, but the Move organization
(05:32):
also believes in self defense, seeing it as a basic
human right and part of the natural law. Archival footage
from the documentary Let the Fire Burn shows members practicing
physical self defense in the yard and patrolling around their
headquarters with firearms, and the organization's conflicts with law enforcement
over the years have more than once stemmed in part
(05:54):
from the presence or the believed presence of weapons in
the MOVE compound. Law enforced men often approached those conflicts
under the assumption that the members of Move were in
fact heavily armed. Breaking up sidewalks and patrolling with weapons
would have easily been enough to cause a problem between
Move and the neighbors, but this was really just the
(06:15):
tip of the iceberg. Move believes that hair should be
left in its natural state, uncut and uncombed, and it
discourages any kind of chemical for cleaning bodies and clothing.
The idea of respect for all animal life includes feeding
rats and stray animals. Uncontained compost piles at the property
in the seventies and eighties were essentially just mounds of garbage,
(06:38):
and all of this lead to complaints from neighbors about hygiene, odors,
and vermin. Moves principles for raising children, which includes feeding
only raw food and not allowing toys and encouraging nudity,
also led to reports of child neglect. Adding another layer,
Move members physically fortified to different homes in Philadelphia, boarding
(07:02):
over windows, erecting fences, and in one case, building a
bunker on the roof. They also played political lectures and
other statements through loudspeakers on the exterior of the properties.
Since part of the core philosophy was that it could
take profane language to fight a profane system, what came
over those loud speakers was often filled with obscenities. All
(07:25):
of this combined meant that even neighbors who agreed with
moves core philosophies about the toxicity of the system and
the sanctity of life often did not like having them
in their neighborhood. People understandably didn't want to live next
to a boarded up bunker with profanity spewing out of
the loud speakers, which was being patrolled by people with
(07:45):
long dreadlocks carrying what appeared to be functional rifles and shotguns.
Families didn't want their children playing outside when the neighborhood
was constantly home to a yard full of trash, profane rants,
people brandishing guns, and as time went on, constant police activity.
Compounding things even further was that MOVE members often took
(08:07):
an aggressively confrontational stance in interactions with police and neighbors.
We mentioned earlier that several commentators have theorized that MOVES
philosophy is purposely hard to define. Similarly, Moves Philadelphia neighbors
in the seventies and eighties theorized that they were being
deliberately antagonizing and and yet another complicating factor, the social
(08:30):
climate of the time meant that a lot of neighbors
also didn't want to involve police, no matter how antagonizing
the situation, and this pitted neighborhood factions against one another
when it came to how to deal with MOVE. The
years of confrontational relationships between MOVE and police ultimately led
to a shootout in nineteen seventy eight, and that shootout
(08:52):
became a precursor for the bombing we will talk about
how after a quick sponsor break in the mid nineteen seventies, MOVE,
which had been established earlier that decade, moved into a
Victorian style home in Powellton Village, Philadelphia. In general, this
(09:15):
was a politically tense time, both nationally and locally. The
United States involvement in the Vietnam War had been hugely divisive,
and Philadelphia's Mayor, Frank Rizzo, had previously been the police commissioner.
He had run on a law and order platform. Philadelphia
police had developed a reputation for unnecessary force and for
(09:36):
cracking down on black neighborhoods a lot harder than on
white neighborhoods. This was so much so that in nineteen
seventy nine, so a year after the shootout we're about
to talk about, the U. S Department of Justice filed
a lawsuit against the city Moves clashes with neighbors in
Powellton Village began almost immediately, including monopolizing community meetings with
(09:58):
profanity laden ants. Complaints from neighbors led to visits from police,
which led to confrontations, which led to arrests. As members
of Move wound up being convicted of a number of
offenses and incarcerated, the organization became even more aggressive, basically
trying to use these confrontations to draw attention to their
efforts to get their incarcerated members released. In May of
(10:23):
nineteen seventy seven, after more than a year of this
cycle of escalations and calls to police, MOVE members were
spotted on the barricaded porch of the home wearing military
style clothing and carrying weapons. Neighbors called the police, and
the police surrounded the house. This seemed like it was
the last straw from the police point of view. They
(10:43):
insisted that they would maintain a constant presence at the
MOVE house and arrest anyone who left it, and they
would charge whoever left the house with firearm and fractions
and incitements to riot. A lot of the neighbors, of course,
did not like the idea of the police keeping a
home them in their neighborhood surrounded, regardless of whether they
sympathized with Move or Not, and they started trying to negotiate.
(11:07):
Father Paul Washington, a minister, and Joel Todd, an attorney,
were each involved with both formal and informal negotiations would
Move and the Philadelphia Police to try to bring about
a peaceful resolution. These negotiations stretched on four months, and
in this whole time there was a lot of police
activity in the neighborhood and a lot of altercations, and
(11:29):
eventually Todd got Move and the police to mutually agree
that MOVE members would submit to an orderly arrest process.
They would cycle through the residence of the house so
that there was always somebody at home to look after
the children and feed the animals. Once people were arrested,
they would be released without having to post bail, although
(11:50):
Move wanted a written guarantee of this and the city
would only provide a verbal one. Move also agreed to
allow a health and weapons inspection of the premises. The
one point that they absolutely could not agree on was
that Move would ultimately vacate the home. And even though
Move and the city had come to an agreement on
(12:10):
several points, Move was acutely aware that none of them
had to do with what was for them the most
important issue that was getting their incarcerated members, who they
referred to as political prisoners, out of prison. But then
a member of Move heard that one of their incarcerated
members had been beaten in prison. Move cut off all negotiations,
(12:32):
and in response, the Philadelphia Police Department established a blockade
around the house, including cutting off the utilities. This blockade
was meant to keep people from both leaving and coming in,
and it stayed in place for more than fifty days.
Now at a total impasse, with sympathetic neighbors smuggling food
and water into the Move house, supporters of Move recruited
(12:54):
civil rights activist Walt Palmer, the Citywide Coalition for Human Rights,
and civil rights attorney Oscar Gaskins to work on moves Behalf. Combined, Palmer,
Gaskins and the Citywide Coalition for Human Rights had far
more power and clout than MOVE had on its own.
Gaskins often appeared in court on MOVE members Behalf to
(13:16):
keep their confrontational manner and use of profanity from derailing
the proceedings. Gaskins negotiated an appeal for the imprisoned MOVE members,
with them being released on their own recognizance to await
their new trials. We also renegotiated the arrests and inspections
that had previously been on the table, and he finally
(13:36):
got Moved to agree to vacate the Powelton Village home
within ninety days. For the most part, Move followed through
on what was agreed upon during these negotiations. This included
the sanitation and weapons inspections. The only weapons found on
the property at the time were not capable of being fired.
The one biggest sticking point was the agreement to vacate
(13:59):
the premises. It was unsurprisingly very difficult for a Move
to find another place to live, and a number of
people looked for more rural property, which seemed to be
a better home for the organization than the city was
probably would not cause as much of an issue to
be out in the country with their particular sort of
(14:20):
back to nature practices than in the city in very
close quarters with their neighbors. Eventually, a farmer in New
Jersey offered to donate farmland, but at some point Move
got the impression that he was planning to use them
for slave labor, and after Move refused his offer, all
attempts to find a new location totally broke down, so
(14:43):
that ninety day window to vacate the house came and went.
A judge ruled that Move was in violation of their agreement,
and police came to evict them on August eight, and
even though that weapons inspection had found only inoperable weapons
in the Move house, the eviction turned into a gunfight.
(15:03):
It's unclear who fired first, but Officer James Ramp was killed.
Move would later maintain that it had been a case
of friendly fire and that Philadelphia police had covered it up.
After a lengthy exchange of gunfire, as members of Move
were finally surrendering, three police officers hit, kicked, and beat
(15:24):
MOVE member Delbert Africa. Most of this beating was both
caught on camera and televised. Philadelphia delayed releasing the names
of the three officers for nearly a year, and once
the case finally came to trial, the judge issued a
directed verdict of acquittal just before the jury was to
come back from its deliberations. Nine members of Move were
(15:48):
convicted of various crimes, including conspiracy and third degree murder
in the shooting death of Officer Ramp. They had all
represented themselves in the proceedings before the judge had them
removed for disruptive behavior. Their sentences ranged from thirty to
one hundred years in prison. Two of those people have
died in prison, but the other seven are still incarcerated
(16:11):
as of this recording. In May of the city of
Philadelphia tore down the Move house two hours after the
eviction and shootout took place. This incident shaped how Move
and the Philadelphia Police worked with one another from this
point on, and we're going to talk about that. After
we first paused for a little sponsor break. In the
(16:38):
early nineteen eighties, members of Move moved into a row
house at sixty one O Sage Avenue. This was a named,
middle class, predominantly black neighborhood in West Philadelphia. The house
belonged to John Africa's sister. By this point, the Philadelphia
Police and Move each had a huge amount of distrust
and dislike of one another. Each help that the other
(17:00):
could not be trusted to negotiate in good faith or
to keep the terms of any agreement. Move argued that
the police in the city were unfairly targeting them because
of their race. The police felt that Move was a
cult full of unstable, dangerous people whose default mode of
communication was shrieking obscenities. There's been a lot of analysis
(17:22):
of the whole pattern of arrests, of of MOVE and
of generally policing in Philadelphia in the seventies and eighties,
and it seems simultaneously absolutely true, Yes, they were being
targeted more because of racism. Also, the style of constantly
confronting people with obscenities was making it worse. Like those
(17:45):
things simultaneously true. Even though as an organization, Move had
really started to become embittered and hostile towards the Philadelphia
government and the police. At this point, they also had
become hopeful that they were going to have a more
sympathetic ear within that government, because on January second, nineteen
(18:06):
eight four, Wilson Good had become Philadelphia's first black mayor.
Move hoped that he would help them get their incarcerated
members out of jail, and that included the Move nine,
which was their name for the people who had been
imprisoned in the death of Officer James Ramp. They also
hoped that the mayor would get the city to allow
what they viewed as their free expression of their religious beliefs,
(18:30):
which was essentially a lot of the stuff that was
causing so many problems within their neighborhoods. The city, however,
at first wanted to avoid getting directly involved, so the
situation on o Sage Avenue played out much like it
had in Powellton Village. Members of Move fortified the house
with boards and built a bunker on the roof. They
(18:51):
collected animals and they fed strays. They broadcast obscene messages
from loudspeakers, and patrolled with what appeared to be functioning firearms.
There are lots of UH photos and archival footage and
things like that of this neighborhood before the bombing happened,
and it really is startling, like the camera will pan
(19:11):
down this row of very neat, well kept, beautifully maintained
row houses where it's clear that like families of middle
class people live, and then all of a sudden it
is a boarded up, fortified UH structure with a bunker
on the roof, and it was very jarring when you
look at it. So neighbors were making repeated complaints about
(19:35):
the noise and the weapons and sanitation and the bunker
on the roof and the welfare of the children living
in the house. So police came and at times made
individual arrests, but no action was taken by the city
to address the roote situation, which was that this fortified
group of apparently armed people were causing lots of distress
(19:58):
among their neighbors. Finally, fed up, neighbors went to the
state government for help. This put pressure on the city
to move and quickly, and they put together a plan
to evict the entire group. The neighborhood in the vicinity
of the Move house on O Sage Avenue was evacuated
on Mother's Day nine five, and residents were told not
to return for twenty four hours. Utilities were shut off
(20:22):
and police established a perimeter around the home. The premise
for the police being there was to serve four members
of Move with warrants for their arrest, and to do
this they had arrived with nearly five hundred police officers
in swat gear. They were armed with machine guns and
also had an anti tank gun. They had a helicopter
that was on loan from the state police, and a
(20:43):
supply of explosives that had been provided by the FBI.
At five thirty five am on May thirteenth, Philadelphia Police
Commissioner greg Or Sambor announced over a bullhorn, attention, Move,
this is America. You must obey the laws of the
United States. Move was then given fifteen minutes to come
(21:06):
out of the house. They vehemently refused. At five fifty
a m. The Philadelphia Fire Department began spraying the bunker
on top of the home with water. Sources contradict on
whether part of the goal was to try to use
the hoses to knock the bunker down, but law enforcement
was very focused on this bunker because it gave Move
(21:26):
a potential vantage point for an ambush. They were definitely, however,
using the water from the hoses to increase the humidity
inside of the house, which would make tear gas more effective.
As all of this was going on, other officers went
into the adjacent homes this was a row house with
you know, adjoining walls, to try to knock holes into
(21:50):
the walls to get into the Move house. The exchange
of gunfire began at around six am. By the end
of the day, the police would fire more than ten
thousand rounds of ammunition into the move house. By midmorning,
the police had used multiple explosive devices to try to
get into the house and had used tear gas to
(22:10):
try to force the people that were inside out and
none of it had worked. They kept breaking through walls
and then finding like fortifications under the walls, that type
of thing. So by noon the situation had turned into
a stalemate. Police decided to withdraw and regroup and work
out a new plan, and around four in the afternoon,
(22:32):
as the force was trying to figure out how to proceed,
someone and sources contradict on who suggested that they dropped
a bomb from a helicopter to try to destroy the bunker.
At about five pm, Mayor Good approved the use of
explosives on the move house. At police dropped a satchel
(22:53):
filled with four pounds of plastic explosive on a forty
five second fuse from the police helicopter onto the roof
of sixty one O Sage Avenue. Although it caused an
explosion that reverberated throughout the neighborhood, the bunker was left standing. However,
about twenty minutes after the bomb had been dropped, it
(23:14):
became clear that the roof of Sie Oh Sage Avenue
was on fire. A little laughter six pm, police Commissioner
Sambor and Fire Commissioner William C. Richmond agreed to let
the fire burn and the hope that it would frighten
everyone out of the home. Within minutes, though the fire
started to spread to neighboring houses in the row. Only
(23:38):
two people escaped the burning Move house, Ramona Africa and
Michael Moses Ward, then known as Birdie Africa. Ramona Africa
was later convicted of riot and conspiracy and served seven
years in prison. Michael Ward, whose mother was killed this day,
was taken into its father's custody. He was thirteen years
(23:59):
old when this half bend. Six adults, including John Africa,
were killed on May thirteenth, along with five children between
the ages of seven and thirteen. Ramona Africa has maintained
that other members of Move tried to leave the burning
home and were forced back by police gunfire. Police have
(24:19):
maintained that members of Move who were seen trying to
leave turned back into the fire for reasons that are unclear,
that perhaps they wanted to regroup, or they had decided
to go back into the home to die. The fire
that began to spread and there was a deliberate decision
to allow it to burn to try to force people
(24:39):
out of a house. Was the worst residential fire in
Philadelphia history. More than sixty homes were destroyed and more
than two hundred fifty people were made homeless. Since the
neighborhood had been evacuated with an order to stay away
for twenty four hours, most of the residents had only
a few of their belongings with them when the fire started,
(25:00):
and they lost virtually everything. This would have been a
newsworthy event on its own, but by this point move
had a huge reputation in all of Philadelphia, so multiple
news crews were on the scene, and much of what
happened one was broadcast live on television. The mayor gave
an address on May thirteenth, saying quote, as mayor of
(25:22):
this city, I accept full and total responsibility. He would
continue to do that repeatedly. He consistently accepted the blame
for what had happened when he ran for re election
a few years later. This, of course, was a huge
part of his opponent's campaign, But his opponent was Frank Rizzo,
who we mentioned earlier in the episode Um and Wilson.
(25:45):
Good defeated his opponent by a narrow margin. In the
immediate aftermath of this particular incident, though, he convened the
Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission, which held five weeks of public hearings.
A second in investigation by a grand jury was convened
on May fifteenth of ninety six, and both of these
(26:05):
investigations agreed that the bombing had been woefully negligent and reckless.
The grand jury report issued on May three called it quote,
an epic of governmental incompetence. The incompetence unfortunately continued in
the rebuilding of the homes that were destroyed in the fire.
(26:25):
The rebuilding effort was shoddy and mismanaged, and in nine seven,
two contractors were charged and convicted of stealing more than
two hundred thousand dollars of the funds that had been
earmarked for that redevelopment. The two contractors and Ramona Africa
are the only people convicted of any crime in conjunction
with the move bombing. Estimates are all over the place,
(26:49):
but the loss of property, the original rebuilding up effort,
and the years of repairs that followed that shoddy and
mismanaged construction had a total cost in tens of millions
of dollars. The city of Philadelphia was also ordered to
pay a total of one point five million dollars in
damages to Ramona, Africa and Michael Ward. In Ramona, Africa
(27:13):
is still living and Michael Ward died in at the
age of forty one, apparently due to an accidental drowning
while on vacation. In two thousand, fifteen years after the
bombing in the Fire, the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority decided it
would be too expensive to continue to try to fix
the ongoing problems from the earlier poor quality rebuilding. They
(27:37):
bought out many of the area's remaining homeowners, offering first
seventy thousand dollars and then a hundred and fifty thousand
dollars to leave the area or to release the city
from any liability for further repairs. By that point, many
of the houses had been sitting boarded up and padlocked
for years. In April seventeen, the City of Philadelphia announced
(27:59):
that a company called the A. J. R. Endeavors had
been selected to oversee the redevelopment of thirty six houses
in the neighborhood of oh Stage Avenue, with a projected
cost of about three point two million dollars, with some
of that cost also being dedicated to funds for a
public work of art in the neighborhood. A historical marker
was also scheduled for placement in seventeen. So all of
(28:22):
the rebuilding of from this massive, massive destruction, it's like
still continuing today, Like this neighborhood is still affected today,
and people who lost their homes and the fire, who
were totally innocent bystanders in all of this, like the
folks are still living today. There's been a lot of
analysis of the opinion or not the opinion the decision
(28:46):
to let the fire burn, and how that was obviously
a catastrophically terrible decision, so catastrophically bad that it actually
spawned conspiracy theories from people who were like, you know,
what I think they were trying to do was burned
down that neighbor hood so they could take it over
all of it and gentrify it. Like that obviously didn't
work out if that was part of the covert plan,
(29:08):
because the rebuilding was such so terribly constructed and then
led some millions of dollars more repairs. But like, especially
in that part of Philadelphia, like the effects of this
event from nine are still continuing today, I'm I'm still
back on UH. I can't help but wonder what it
(29:29):
must have been like for neighbors to basically be told
by police, hey, evacuate your home. Your neighborhood is going
to become a war zone. Yeah. Well, and there are
because the whole thing played out on live television, like
you see you can see in archival footage and in
the documentary Let the Fire Burn that we referenced earlier
(29:51):
in the show, Like you see people either seeing on
television or coming back to the neighborhood and seeing what
was happening, and people make comparisons to Vietnam and how
it seems like a war zone. Um. There's a scene
where John Africa's sister, whose name I unfortunately didn't write
down in in my notes. She's no longer affiliated with
(30:11):
Move from what I understand, so I didn't really get
as much into that part, but there is footage of
her arriving back in the neighborhood and seeing what is
going on and just being distraught. Obviously, it was just
a horrifying event for everybody who was present that day,
a lot of whom are still living. UH. And then
(30:34):
of course the loss of life including a lot of
children during the fire and the shootout itself. What's the
listeners male situation like, No, I would not I would
not call it depressing, but it is about one of
our more uh serious episodes we've done lately, which was
on the Cato Street Conspiracy. One of the things that
(30:56):
came up in that episode was that two different horses
had said completely contradictory things about a previous trial that
Arthur this would had been involved in. So this is
from Megan. It just came in this morning. It was
very well timed and it came in a few hours
before we recorded this episode. And Megan says, longtime listener,
(31:17):
first time caller, emailer, any who, I was listening to
your episode on the Cato Street Conspiracy on my walk
this morning when you mentioned that it was unclear what
had happened in the eighteen seventeen case because of conflicting
published information, which is fair enough as that case is
hard to find and publicly available for him. Luckily, I
am an ex law librarian and my first law job
(31:40):
was at one of the ends of courts in London.
We're finding really old and obscure cases. Was about seventy
of my day as a trainee librarian, and I still
have access now uh as a system's librarian in academia
to some of those resources. So Rex versus This would
and others was a series of trials held in front
(32:01):
of the King's Bench with a jury in eighteen seventeen,
and the whole thing is a fairly excruciatingly tedious read.
But basically, after the jury found James Watson the Elder
not guilty of the charges laid upon him of treason
et cetera in his trial, which was the first one heard,
the Attorney General decided that they would not continue to
press the same charges against Thistlewood, Preston and Hooper, as
(32:24):
this was announced when the court was assembled the following morning,
June seventeen seventeen for their trials. So the jury declared
them not guilty and discharged them. So they were acquitted
under English common law by a jury with a not
guilty verdict. But that was the usual practice for a
case where charges were withdrawn. So both of the things
(32:45):
I had said that they were acquitted and that the
charges were withdrawn were basically simultaneously true. To get back
to the letter, always enjoy the podcast and thank you
for giving me the chance to stretch the old case
law finding skills. Hope it's useful and or interesting. Obviously,
R v. Thistlewood eighteen twenty is more important piece of
(33:05):
case law because that is where they found they were
found guilty of high treason, etcetera, and is still cited
frequently today. I also found Thistlewood's chance streight case in
regards to the bankrupt buyer slash annuity and his inherence, etcetera.
Megan Uh. And then she sent a link to a
a Google book e book um of a trial record.
(33:26):
So thank you so much, Megan number one for answering
that question, because I was genuinely wondering what was correct
when it seemed like two things said the opposite. Number
two shout out to librarians. You know it's librarians are great.
In addition to this great email, Uh, one of the
sources for today's episode was a book that I was
(33:48):
only able to get thanks to a librarian. So if
you would like to write to us about this or
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(34:09):
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(34:31):
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and other knowledgeable people answer them. Um. One of the
ones I saw this morning which had a great answer
(34:53):
was was it really fun to stay at the y
m c A. I love whoever asked that question, and
I love the person who wrote the wonderful answer that
I saw every day this morning, So I can do
all that a whole lot more at how stuff works
dot com or missed in History dot com for more
(35:16):
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
stuff works? Dot com
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. So our
show has a general rule of thumb. We've talked, we've
(00:21):
alluded to it relatively recently when it comes to the
more recent past. For the most part, we talked about
history that's roughly, very roughly the nineteen sixties and earlier. Yeah. Yeah,
we want to focus on things that chunk of our
listeners did not personally live through and have individual memories of. Uh.
(00:41):
And it also helps us to focus a little farther
in the past because we're able to take a broader
perspective a lot of the time and find multiple perspectives
on things so that we can compare those and get
a like a broader picture of what actually happened. UM.
Our line in the Santa's farther back. But it's very
similar reasons to the ask Historians subreddit, which has a
(01:04):
twenty year rule about what's acceptable to ask about in
the subreddit. Uh. That is a great resource, by the way,
which A're gonna link to you in the show notes.
So even though our line in the sand is farther back.
It's very similar to reasoning, the reasoning to how they
frame it. Sometimes, though, we get a lot of request
for something that is from more recent history, but not
(01:25):
necessarily something that listeners are overwhelmingly likely to personally remember.
And that's the case where we are talking about today.
In five following a lengthy standoff, the Philadelphia police bombed
a residential building that was home to the move organization.
This caused a fire that burned down more than sixty
homes and eleven people were killed. I had never heard
(01:49):
of this until it's thirtieth anniversary and got a lot
of mainstream media coverage, and that coverage prompted a lot
of requests for an episode, which we both mostly responded
to you by saying, this is a little more recent
than we normally talk about. But then a year later
we got another wave of requests for an episode, so
(02:12):
anticipating another wave in the anniversary of this year, we
decided to put it on the calendar. Uh And even
though folks who grew up in Philadelphia or who have
studied or been part of relevant fields of study and
social movements and that sort of thing are likely to
remember this I never heard of. This has been a
(02:32):
common enough refrain in May for the last couple of
years that it seems worth it to devot an episode. Yeah.
Articles about the Move bombing since his thirtieth anniversary have
often pigeonholed the organization as a black liberation group or
a black power group, but this is at best a
partial description. While the organization is revolutionary and its members
(02:56):
are and have been predominantly black, the Move organization overlaps
with other movements and philosophies as well, sometimes in ways
that can seem really contradictory. Articles from past decades are
far more likely to call MOVE a back to nature, primitivist,
or counterculture group. To be clear, it is not at
all unusual for an organization that's connected to racial justice
(03:20):
or any social issue really to have a platform that
touches on other issues that might not seem to be
related at first glance. Sometimes this is because issues are
interconnected in a way that doesn't immediately seem obvious. But
the Move organization's philosophies are disparate enough that they're often
described in words like uncategorizable, with some commentators going so
(03:44):
far as to suggest that it is a deliberate effort
to be hard to pin down. Even the name MOVE,
which is normally written in all caps, doesn't stand for anything,
even though it is written that way, and a lot
of these contradictory philosophies and p actuses were at the
root of ongoing disputes between Move and its Philadelphia neighbors
(04:05):
in the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties. Part of moves
general philosophy is that the system which encompasses industry, big business,
the government, the military, etcetera. Is toxic. It's a corrupting,
abusive force that is poisoning the planet and society in
pursuit of money. Life, on the other hand, is sacred.
(04:28):
God and nature are the sources of life, and the
natural law which governs all life is universally applicable to everyone.
Another core belief among MOVE members is that by revolutionizing
themselves through the guidelines left by founder John Africa, they
can revolutionize the world and ultimately end problems like homelessness, racism,
(04:49):
drug addiction, HIV and crime. This personal revolution has some
parallels with the Back to Nature Movement. Members eat raw food,
they avoid drugs and alcohol. They advocate for things like
animal rights, and clean air and water technology is seen
as harmful, with members going so far as to use
wood stoves for heat and to break up the sidewalk
(05:11):
adjacent to their home to restore the connection to the land.
Members also live collectively in communal living situations, all adopting
the surname Africa after John Africa. Based on this focus
on the sanctity of life, it may seem that the
next logical step is non violence, but the Move organization
(05:32):
also believes in self defense, seeing it as a basic
human right and part of the natural law. Archival footage
from the documentary Let the Fire Burn shows members practicing
physical self defense in the yard and patrolling around their
headquarters with firearms, and the organization's conflicts with law enforcement
over the years have more than once stemmed in part
(05:54):
from the presence or the believed presence of weapons in
the MOVE compound. Law enforced men often approached those conflicts
under the assumption that the members of Move were in
fact heavily armed. Breaking up sidewalks and patrolling with weapons
would have easily been enough to cause a problem between
Move and the neighbors, but this was really just the
(06:15):
tip of the iceberg. Move believes that hair should be
left in its natural state, uncut and uncombed, and it
discourages any kind of chemical for cleaning bodies and clothing.
The idea of respect for all animal life includes feeding
rats and stray animals. Uncontained compost piles at the property
in the seventies and eighties were essentially just mounds of garbage,
(06:38):
and all of this lead to complaints from neighbors about hygiene, odors,
and vermin. Moves principles for raising children, which includes feeding
only raw food and not allowing toys and encouraging nudity,
also led to reports of child neglect. Adding another layer,
Move members physically fortified to different homes in Philadelphia, boarding
(07:02):
over windows, erecting fences, and in one case, building a
bunker on the roof. They also played political lectures and
other statements through loudspeakers on the exterior of the properties.
Since part of the core philosophy was that it could
take profane language to fight a profane system, what came
over those loud speakers was often filled with obscenities. All
(07:25):
of this combined meant that even neighbors who agreed with
moves core philosophies about the toxicity of the system and
the sanctity of life often did not like having them
in their neighborhood. People understandably didn't want to live next
to a boarded up bunker with profanity spewing out of
the loud speakers, which was being patrolled by people with
(07:45):
long dreadlocks carrying what appeared to be functional rifles and shotguns.
Families didn't want their children playing outside when the neighborhood
was constantly home to a yard full of trash, profane rants,
people brandishing guns, and as time went on, constant police activity.
Compounding things even further was that MOVE members often took
(08:07):
an aggressively confrontational stance in interactions with police and neighbors.
We mentioned earlier that several commentators have theorized that MOVES
philosophy is purposely hard to define. Similarly, Moves Philadelphia neighbors
in the seventies and eighties theorized that they were being
deliberately antagonizing and and yet another complicating factor, the social
(08:30):
climate of the time meant that a lot of neighbors
also didn't want to involve police, no matter how antagonizing
the situation, and this pitted neighborhood factions against one another
when it came to how to deal with MOVE. The
years of confrontational relationships between MOVE and police ultimately led
to a shootout in nineteen seventy eight, and that shootout
(08:52):
became a precursor for the bombing we will talk about
how after a quick sponsor break in the mid nineteen seventies, MOVE,
which had been established earlier that decade, moved into a
Victorian style home in Powellton Village, Philadelphia. In general, this
(09:15):
was a politically tense time, both nationally and locally. The
United States involvement in the Vietnam War had been hugely divisive,
and Philadelphia's Mayor, Frank Rizzo, had previously been the police commissioner.
He had run on a law and order platform. Philadelphia
police had developed a reputation for unnecessary force and for
(09:36):
cracking down on black neighborhoods a lot harder than on
white neighborhoods. This was so much so that in nineteen
seventy nine, so a year after the shootout we're about
to talk about, the U. S Department of Justice filed
a lawsuit against the city Moves clashes with neighbors in
Powellton Village began almost immediately, including monopolizing community meetings with
(09:58):
profanity laden ants. Complaints from neighbors led to visits from police,
which led to confrontations, which led to arrests. As members
of Move wound up being convicted of a number of
offenses and incarcerated, the organization became even more aggressive, basically
trying to use these confrontations to draw attention to their
efforts to get their incarcerated members released. In May of
(10:23):
nineteen seventy seven, after more than a year of this
cycle of escalations and calls to police, MOVE members were
spotted on the barricaded porch of the home wearing military
style clothing and carrying weapons. Neighbors called the police, and
the police surrounded the house. This seemed like it was
the last straw from the police point of view. They
(10:43):
insisted that they would maintain a constant presence at the
MOVE house and arrest anyone who left it, and they
would charge whoever left the house with firearm and fractions
and incitements to riot. A lot of the neighbors, of course,
did not like the idea of the police keeping a
home them in their neighborhood surrounded, regardless of whether they
sympathized with Move or Not, and they started trying to negotiate.
(11:07):
Father Paul Washington, a minister, and Joel Todd, an attorney,
were each involved with both formal and informal negotiations would
Move and the Philadelphia Police to try to bring about
a peaceful resolution. These negotiations stretched on four months, and
in this whole time there was a lot of police
activity in the neighborhood and a lot of altercations, and
(11:29):
eventually Todd got Move and the police to mutually agree
that MOVE members would submit to an orderly arrest process.
They would cycle through the residence of the house so
that there was always somebody at home to look after
the children and feed the animals. Once people were arrested,
they would be released without having to post bail, although
(11:50):
Move wanted a written guarantee of this and the city
would only provide a verbal one. Move also agreed to
allow a health and weapons inspection of the premises. The
one point that they absolutely could not agree on was
that Move would ultimately vacate the home. And even though
Move and the city had come to an agreement on
(12:10):
several points, Move was acutely aware that none of them
had to do with what was for them the most
important issue that was getting their incarcerated members, who they
referred to as political prisoners, out of prison. But then
a member of Move heard that one of their incarcerated
members had been beaten in prison. Move cut off all negotiations,
(12:32):
and in response, the Philadelphia Police Department established a blockade
around the house, including cutting off the utilities. This blockade
was meant to keep people from both leaving and coming in,
and it stayed in place for more than fifty days.
Now at a total impasse, with sympathetic neighbors smuggling food
and water into the Move house, supporters of Move recruited
(12:54):
civil rights activist Walt Palmer, the Citywide Coalition for Human Rights,
and civil rights attorney Oscar Gaskins to work on moves Behalf. Combined, Palmer,
Gaskins and the Citywide Coalition for Human Rights had far
more power and clout than MOVE had on its own.
Gaskins often appeared in court on MOVE members Behalf to
(13:16):
keep their confrontational manner and use of profanity from derailing
the proceedings. Gaskins negotiated an appeal for the imprisoned MOVE members,
with them being released on their own recognizance to await
their new trials. We also renegotiated the arrests and inspections
that had previously been on the table, and he finally
(13:36):
got Moved to agree to vacate the Powelton Village home
within ninety days. For the most part, Move followed through
on what was agreed upon during these negotiations. This included
the sanitation and weapons inspections. The only weapons found on
the property at the time were not capable of being fired.
The one biggest sticking point was the agreement to vacate
(13:59):
the premises. It was unsurprisingly very difficult for a Move
to find another place to live, and a number of
people looked for more rural property, which seemed to be
a better home for the organization than the city was
probably would not cause as much of an issue to
be out in the country with their particular sort of
(14:20):
back to nature practices than in the city in very
close quarters with their neighbors. Eventually, a farmer in New
Jersey offered to donate farmland, but at some point Move
got the impression that he was planning to use them
for slave labor, and after Move refused his offer, all
attempts to find a new location totally broke down, so
(14:43):
that ninety day window to vacate the house came and went.
A judge ruled that Move was in violation of their agreement,
and police came to evict them on August eight, and
even though that weapons inspection had found only inoperable weapons
in the Move house, the eviction turned into a gunfight.
(15:03):
It's unclear who fired first, but Officer James Ramp was killed.
Move would later maintain that it had been a case
of friendly fire and that Philadelphia police had covered it up.
After a lengthy exchange of gunfire, as members of Move
were finally surrendering, three police officers hit, kicked, and beat
(15:24):
MOVE member Delbert Africa. Most of this beating was both
caught on camera and televised. Philadelphia delayed releasing the names
of the three officers for nearly a year, and once
the case finally came to trial, the judge issued a
directed verdict of acquittal just before the jury was to
come back from its deliberations. Nine members of Move were
(15:48):
convicted of various crimes, including conspiracy and third degree murder
in the shooting death of Officer Ramp. They had all
represented themselves in the proceedings before the judge had them
removed for disruptive behavior. Their sentences ranged from thirty to
one hundred years in prison. Two of those people have
died in prison, but the other seven are still incarcerated
(16:11):
as of this recording. In May of the city of
Philadelphia tore down the Move house two hours after the
eviction and shootout took place. This incident shaped how Move
and the Philadelphia Police worked with one another from this
point on, and we're going to talk about that. After
we first paused for a little sponsor break. In the
(16:38):
early nineteen eighties, members of Move moved into a row
house at sixty one O Sage Avenue. This was a named,
middle class, predominantly black neighborhood in West Philadelphia. The house
belonged to John Africa's sister. By this point, the Philadelphia
Police and Move each had a huge amount of distrust
and dislike of one another. Each help that the other
(17:00):
could not be trusted to negotiate in good faith or
to keep the terms of any agreement. Move argued that
the police in the city were unfairly targeting them because
of their race. The police felt that Move was a
cult full of unstable, dangerous people whose default mode of
communication was shrieking obscenities. There's been a lot of analysis
(17:22):
of the whole pattern of arrests, of of MOVE and
of generally policing in Philadelphia in the seventies and eighties,
and it seems simultaneously absolutely true, Yes, they were being
targeted more because of racism. Also, the style of constantly
confronting people with obscenities was making it worse. Like those
(17:45):
things simultaneously true. Even though as an organization, Move had
really started to become embittered and hostile towards the Philadelphia
government and the police. At this point, they also had
become hopeful that they were going to have a more
sympathetic ear within that government, because on January second, nineteen
(18:06):
eight four, Wilson Good had become Philadelphia's first black mayor.
Move hoped that he would help them get their incarcerated
members out of jail, and that included the Move nine,
which was their name for the people who had been
imprisoned in the death of Officer James Ramp. They also
hoped that the mayor would get the city to allow
what they viewed as their free expression of their religious beliefs,
(18:30):
which was essentially a lot of the stuff that was
causing so many problems within their neighborhoods. The city, however,
at first wanted to avoid getting directly involved, so the
situation on o Sage Avenue played out much like it
had in Powellton Village. Members of Move fortified the house
with boards and built a bunker on the roof. They
(18:51):
collected animals and they fed strays. They broadcast obscene messages
from loudspeakers, and patrolled with what appeared to be functioning firearms.
There are lots of UH photos and archival footage and
things like that of this neighborhood before the bombing happened,
and it really is startling, like the camera will pan
(19:11):
down this row of very neat, well kept, beautifully maintained
row houses where it's clear that like families of middle
class people live, and then all of a sudden it
is a boarded up, fortified UH structure with a bunker
on the roof, and it was very jarring when you
look at it. So neighbors were making repeated complaints about
(19:35):
the noise and the weapons and sanitation and the bunker
on the roof and the welfare of the children living
in the house. So police came and at times made
individual arrests, but no action was taken by the city
to address the roote situation, which was that this fortified
group of apparently armed people were causing lots of distress
(19:58):
among their neighbors. Finally, fed up, neighbors went to the
state government for help. This put pressure on the city
to move and quickly, and they put together a plan
to evict the entire group. The neighborhood in the vicinity
of the Move house on O Sage Avenue was evacuated
on Mother's Day nine five, and residents were told not
to return for twenty four hours. Utilities were shut off
(20:22):
and police established a perimeter around the home. The premise
for the police being there was to serve four members
of Move with warrants for their arrest, and to do
this they had arrived with nearly five hundred police officers
in swat gear. They were armed with machine guns and
also had an anti tank gun. They had a helicopter
that was on loan from the state police, and a
(20:43):
supply of explosives that had been provided by the FBI.
At five thirty five am on May thirteenth, Philadelphia Police
Commissioner greg Or Sambor announced over a bullhorn, attention, Move,
this is America. You must obey the laws of the
United States. Move was then given fifteen minutes to come
(21:06):
out of the house. They vehemently refused. At five fifty
a m. The Philadelphia Fire Department began spraying the bunker
on top of the home with water. Sources contradict on
whether part of the goal was to try to use
the hoses to knock the bunker down, but law enforcement
was very focused on this bunker because it gave Move
(21:26):
a potential vantage point for an ambush. They were definitely, however,
using the water from the hoses to increase the humidity
inside of the house, which would make tear gas more effective.
As all of this was going on, other officers went
into the adjacent homes this was a row house with
you know, adjoining walls, to try to knock holes into
(21:50):
the walls to get into the Move house. The exchange
of gunfire began at around six am. By the end
of the day, the police would fire more than ten
thousand rounds of ammunition into the move house. By midmorning,
the police had used multiple explosive devices to try to
get into the house and had used tear gas to
(22:10):
try to force the people that were inside out and
none of it had worked. They kept breaking through walls
and then finding like fortifications under the walls, that type
of thing. So by noon the situation had turned into
a stalemate. Police decided to withdraw and regroup and work
out a new plan, and around four in the afternoon,
(22:32):
as the force was trying to figure out how to proceed,
someone and sources contradict on who suggested that they dropped
a bomb from a helicopter to try to destroy the bunker.
At about five pm, Mayor Good approved the use of
explosives on the move house. At police dropped a satchel
(22:53):
filled with four pounds of plastic explosive on a forty
five second fuse from the police helicopter onto the roof
of sixty one O Sage Avenue. Although it caused an
explosion that reverberated throughout the neighborhood, the bunker was left standing. However,
about twenty minutes after the bomb had been dropped, it
(23:14):
became clear that the roof of Sie Oh Sage Avenue
was on fire. A little laughter six pm, police Commissioner
Sambor and Fire Commissioner William C. Richmond agreed to let
the fire burn and the hope that it would frighten
everyone out of the home. Within minutes, though the fire
started to spread to neighboring houses in the row. Only
(23:38):
two people escaped the burning Move house, Ramona Africa and
Michael Moses Ward, then known as Birdie Africa. Ramona Africa
was later convicted of riot and conspiracy and served seven
years in prison. Michael Ward, whose mother was killed this day,
was taken into its father's custody. He was thirteen years
(23:59):
old when this half bend. Six adults, including John Africa,
were killed on May thirteenth, along with five children between
the ages of seven and thirteen. Ramona Africa has maintained
that other members of Move tried to leave the burning
home and were forced back by police gunfire. Police have
(24:19):
maintained that members of Move who were seen trying to
leave turned back into the fire for reasons that are unclear,
that perhaps they wanted to regroup, or they had decided
to go back into the home to die. The fire
that began to spread and there was a deliberate decision
to allow it to burn to try to force people
(24:39):
out of a house. Was the worst residential fire in
Philadelphia history. More than sixty homes were destroyed and more
than two hundred fifty people were made homeless. Since the
neighborhood had been evacuated with an order to stay away
for twenty four hours, most of the residents had only
a few of their belongings with them when the fire started,
(25:00):
and they lost virtually everything. This would have been a
newsworthy event on its own, but by this point move
had a huge reputation in all of Philadelphia, so multiple
news crews were on the scene, and much of what
happened one was broadcast live on television. The mayor gave
an address on May thirteenth, saying quote, as mayor of
(25:22):
this city, I accept full and total responsibility. He would
continue to do that repeatedly. He consistently accepted the blame
for what had happened when he ran for re election
a few years later. This, of course, was a huge
part of his opponent's campaign, But his opponent was Frank Rizzo,
who we mentioned earlier in the episode Um and Wilson.
(25:45):
Good defeated his opponent by a narrow margin. In the
immediate aftermath of this particular incident, though, he convened the
Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission, which held five weeks of public hearings.
A second in investigation by a grand jury was convened
on May fifteenth of ninety six, and both of these
(26:05):
investigations agreed that the bombing had been woefully negligent and reckless.
The grand jury report issued on May three called it quote,
an epic of governmental incompetence. The incompetence unfortunately continued in
the rebuilding of the homes that were destroyed in the fire.
(26:25):
The rebuilding effort was shoddy and mismanaged, and in nine seven,
two contractors were charged and convicted of stealing more than
two hundred thousand dollars of the funds that had been
earmarked for that redevelopment. The two contractors and Ramona Africa
are the only people convicted of any crime in conjunction
with the move bombing. Estimates are all over the place,
(26:49):
but the loss of property, the original rebuilding up effort,
and the years of repairs that followed that shoddy and
mismanaged construction had a total cost in tens of millions
of dollars. The city of Philadelphia was also ordered to
pay a total of one point five million dollars in
damages to Ramona, Africa and Michael Ward. In Ramona, Africa
(27:13):
is still living and Michael Ward died in at the
age of forty one, apparently due to an accidental drowning
while on vacation. In two thousand, fifteen years after the
bombing in the Fire, the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority decided it
would be too expensive to continue to try to fix
the ongoing problems from the earlier poor quality rebuilding. They
(27:37):
bought out many of the area's remaining homeowners, offering first
seventy thousand dollars and then a hundred and fifty thousand
dollars to leave the area or to release the city
from any liability for further repairs. By that point, many
of the houses had been sitting boarded up and padlocked
for years. In April seventeen, the City of Philadelphia announced
(27:59):
that a company called the A. J. R. Endeavors had
been selected to oversee the redevelopment of thirty six houses
in the neighborhood of oh Stage Avenue, with a projected
cost of about three point two million dollars, with some
of that cost also being dedicated to funds for a
public work of art in the neighborhood. A historical marker
was also scheduled for placement in seventeen. So all of
(28:22):
the rebuilding of from this massive, massive destruction, it's like
still continuing today, Like this neighborhood is still affected today,
and people who lost their homes and the fire, who
were totally innocent bystanders in all of this, like the
folks are still living today. There's been a lot of
analysis of the opinion or not the opinion the decision
(28:46):
to let the fire burn, and how that was obviously
a catastrophically terrible decision, so catastrophically bad that it actually
spawned conspiracy theories from people who were like, you know,
what I think they were trying to do was burned
down that neighbor hood so they could take it over
all of it and gentrify it. Like that obviously didn't
work out if that was part of the covert plan,
(29:08):
because the rebuilding was such so terribly constructed and then
led some millions of dollars more repairs. But like, especially
in that part of Philadelphia, like the effects of this
event from nine are still continuing today, I'm I'm still
back on UH. I can't help but wonder what it
(29:29):
must have been like for neighbors to basically be told
by police, hey, evacuate your home. Your neighborhood is going
to become a war zone. Yeah. Well, and there are
because the whole thing played out on live television, like
you see you can see in archival footage and in
the documentary Let the Fire Burn that we referenced earlier
(29:51):
in the show, Like you see people either seeing on
television or coming back to the neighborhood and seeing what
was happening, and people make comparisons to Vietnam and how
it seems like a war zone. Um. There's a scene
where John Africa's sister, whose name I unfortunately didn't write
down in in my notes. She's no longer affiliated with
(30:11):
Move from what I understand, so I didn't really get
as much into that part, but there is footage of
her arriving back in the neighborhood and seeing what is
going on and just being distraught. Obviously, it was just
a horrifying event for everybody who was present that day,
a lot of whom are still living. UH. And then
(30:34):
of course the loss of life including a lot of
children during the fire and the shootout itself. What's the
listeners male situation like, No, I would not I would
not call it depressing, but it is about one of
our more uh serious episodes we've done lately, which was
on the Cato Street Conspiracy. One of the things that
(30:56):
came up in that episode was that two different horses
had said completely contradictory things about a previous trial that
Arthur this would had been involved in. So this is
from Megan. It just came in this morning. It was
very well timed and it came in a few hours
before we recorded this episode. And Megan says, longtime listener,
(31:17):
first time caller, emailer, any who, I was listening to
your episode on the Cato Street Conspiracy on my walk
this morning when you mentioned that it was unclear what
had happened in the eighteen seventeen case because of conflicting
published information, which is fair enough as that case is
hard to find and publicly available for him. Luckily, I
am an ex law librarian and my first law job
(31:40):
was at one of the ends of courts in London.
We're finding really old and obscure cases. Was about seventy
of my day as a trainee librarian, and I still
have access now uh as a system's librarian in academia
to some of those resources. So Rex versus This would
and others was a series of trials held in front
(32:01):
of the King's Bench with a jury in eighteen seventeen,
and the whole thing is a fairly excruciatingly tedious read.
But basically, after the jury found James Watson the Elder
not guilty of the charges laid upon him of treason
et cetera in his trial, which was the first one heard,
the Attorney General decided that they would not continue to
press the same charges against Thistlewood, Preston and Hooper, as
(32:24):
this was announced when the court was assembled the following morning,
June seventeen seventeen for their trials. So the jury declared
them not guilty and discharged them. So they were acquitted
under English common law by a jury with a not
guilty verdict. But that was the usual practice for a
case where charges were withdrawn. So both of the things
(32:45):
I had said that they were acquitted and that the
charges were withdrawn were basically simultaneously true. To get back
to the letter, always enjoy the podcast and thank you
for giving me the chance to stretch the old case
law finding skills. Hope it's useful and or interesting. Obviously,
R v. Thistlewood eighteen twenty is more important piece of
(33:05):
case law because that is where they found they were
found guilty of high treason, etcetera, and is still cited
frequently today. I also found Thistlewood's chance streight case in
regards to the bankrupt buyer slash annuity and his inherence, etcetera.
Megan Uh. And then she sent a link to a
a Google book e book um of a trial record.
(33:26):
So thank you so much, Megan number one for answering
that question, because I was genuinely wondering what was correct
when it seemed like two things said the opposite. Number
two shout out to librarians. You know it's librarians are great.
In addition to this great email, Uh, one of the
sources for today's episode was a book that I was
(33:48):
only able to get thanks to a librarian. So if
you would like to write to us about this or
any other podcast where history podcasts at how Stuff Works
dot com, We're all so. On Facebook at facebook dot
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(34:09):
missed in History. You can come to our parent companies website,
which is how stuff Works dot com and find uh
information about just about anything your heart desires. And you
can come to our website, which is missed in History
dot com, where we have an archive of every episode
ever and we have UH show notes of the episodes
that Holly and I have worked on. Those notes are
(34:31):
now part of the actual podcast player page, so everything
is all in one place. And as we said earlier,
we will put in a note to our link to
the subreddit of ask Historians, which is an awesome place
to add or to ask great questions and have historians
and other knowledgeable people answer them. Um. One of the
ones I saw this morning which had a great answer
(34:53):
was was it really fun to stay at the y
m c A. I love whoever asked that question, and
I love the person who wrote the wonderful answer that
I saw every day this morning, So I can do
all that a whole lot more at how stuff works
dot com or missed in History dot com for more
(35:16):
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
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