In 1985, the Philadelphia police department bombed the headquarters of the Black liberation group MOVE. Five children and six adults died as a result of the attack. While the event and its implications might seem like not-so-ancient history, a recent discovery proved that the story is not yet finished.
Human remains belonging to one of the child victims have been discovered inside the University of Pennsylvania’s museum, meaning that someone’s final resting place has been a public display for decades.
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This was the second set of remains from those victims. The remains are believed to belong to 12-year-old Delisha Africa, reports NBC Philadelphia . Her remains were found as the Penn Museum was conducting a comprehensive inventory of its collection. Museum staff collected and prepared thousands of artifacts, some a century old, to be moved and placed in storage facilities.
In 2021, museum officials acknowledged that the university had retained remains from another one of the victims. The university had been involved in forensic identification in the wake of the tragedy.
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Later, the city contacted family members to inform them that there was a box of remains at the medical examiner’s office. It had been there since autopsies were performed. The museum said they are unsure how Delisha’s remains were just recently discovered or why they were separated from the other victims. They immediately contacted the child’s family upon their discovery.
Penn Museum released a statement about the discovery on its website. “We are committed to full transparency with respect to any new evidence that may emerge. Confronting our institutional history requires ever-evolving examination of how we can uphold museum practices to the highest ethical standards. Centering human dignity and the wishes of descendant communities govern the current treatment of human remains in the Penn Museum’s care,” it reads.
Civil Rights attorneys Bakari Sellers and Daniel Hartstein, who represent the family of one of the adult victims, Katricia, claimed that the museum made repeated assurances that all remains from the bombing had been returned to the families.
“For nearly 40 years, the City of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania and the Penn Museum have refused to treat the MOVE Bombing victims or their families with the even most basic level of respect and decency and this latest revelation is just the most recent in a long line of atrocities Black folks in America have had to live with,” the attorneys said in a November 14, 2024, statement per Strom Law Firm.
“We are disgusted and disappointed but, unfortunately, we are not surprised. The damage Penn has done is absolutely appalling and unforgivable. It’s time they did the right thing so these children can finally rest in peace.”
The MOVE organization was led by John Africa. Its members shunned modern conveniences, believed in equal rights for animals and rejected government authority. As such, the group often clashed with police. On May 13, 1985, the police were trying to get members to leave the headquarters, so they dropped a bomb.
The bomb also caused a fire that spread to more than 60 homes in the neighborhood. Emergency personnel were told to stand down as the neighborhood burned. A year later, a commission report called the decision to bomb an occupied row house “unconscionable.” MOVE survivors were awarded $1.5. million in a 1996 lawsuit.
