On May 13, 1985, the city of Philadelphia–with the help of the U.S. federal government–dropped a military-grade bomb on the home of the MOVE organization, a collective of Black naturalist revolutionaries founded in 1972 West Philadelphia. Eleven children, women, and men of the MOVE organization were murdered and 61 Black-owned homes were destroyed after police and fire personnel intentionally allowed the fire produced by the bomb to burn. The MOVE bombing is a defining moment in the long and ongoing history of state repression of Black radicalism in Philadelphia and of the specific targeting of the MOVE organization. Years earlier, in 1978, police raided and razed MOVE’s first communal home. During the raid, nine MOVE members– commonly known as The MOVE 9–were brutally arrested and subsequently incarcerated. Collective understandings of MOVE have been fundamentally shaped by both the criminalization and incarceration of its members and state and media control of the organization’s narrative. However, the recent release of the 7 surviving members of The MOVE 9 after 40 years of political incarceration means that MOVE members are now able to share their history on their own terms.

The MOVE Activist Archive is a community archiving project, which preserves the history of MOVE’s resistance to state violence and state repression of MOVE activism. A joint project of the MOVE Organization and the West Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, in collaboration with Re/Member Black Philadelphia, a storytelling and archiving project led by Dr. Krystal Strong, the MOVE Activist Archive is a site of organizational history and collective memory, a catalyst for transformative justice, and a guide for social movements, most recently amplified by rising attention to police terrorism and state violence in Black communities.

Over the next two years and beyond, The MOVE Activist Archive will work to: (1) preserve MOVE organizational materials that are privately-held and currently vulnerable; (2) launch a MOVE digital archive; and (3) curate a multimodal exhibition of MOVE history through a series of community programs and immersive experiences. Together, these activities will preserve and amplify the history, memory, and ongoing activism of the MOVE organization and increase public engagement with the historical record and collective memory of one of the most important organizations to the history of Black activism in Philadelphia and global Black freedom struggles.