In one of the most heinous acts of police violence against Black Americans, Philadelphia cops killed 11 people (including 5 kids) and left hundreds more homeless. But the case is mostly forgotten now. We get the inside scoop on the 1985 MOVE bombing - and why it’s relevant today with our bloated and growing police state.

SHOW NOTES

Guest: Linn Washington Jr.

Linn Washington Jr. is an award-winning investigative journalist and professor at Temple University. His reporting focuses on the news media, social justice, race, and law. He also served as Special Assistant to the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Linn is the leading authority on the Philadelphia Police Department’s bombing of the MOVE house on May 13, 1985. He was on the scene covering the tragedy.

MORE ABOUT MOVE:

• “MOVE: Untangling The Tragedy” (Linn’s great podcast series)
• The 1985 MOVE Massacre: When Cops Bombed Philadelphia (documentary)
• On A Move: Philadelphia's Notorious Bombing And A Native Son's Lifelong Battle For Justice (book by Mike Africa Jr.)

TEACHING RESOURCES:

• "On A Move" High School Curriculum
• Zinn Education Project - Philadelphia Police Bomb MOVE
• Middle School Students Memorialized The MOVE Bombing

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

[4:29] Origins of MOVE and overview of May 13, 1985 bombing

[7:20] Brutal history of Philadelphia police and pushback from MOVE

[10:46] 1978 starvation blockade of MOVE compound resulted in shootout and nine MOVE members sentenced to prison for 30 to 100 years

[13:10] MOVE’s strategy to free incarcerated members

[17:37] Police Commissioner’s plan to bomb compound and let fire burn

[27:05] Middle school students’ discovery of bombing inspires marker commemorating deaths of children

[31:32] Importance of a free press to inform the public and serve as watchdog on government

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Harvard University used enslaved labor on its sugar plantations and reaped profits from the slave trade. Richard Cellini, the researcher it hired to identify its enslaved and their descendants, joins us. His team found far more than expected – and it got them fired! Our alma mater sits on a $57 billion endowment. How should it make amends?

SHOW NOTES

Guest: Richard Cellini

Richard Cellini is an attorney and leading scholar of the history of slavery and institutional accountability. He was founding Director of the Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program. He also founded the 10 Million Names Project to recover the names of enslaved Black Americans, and the Georgetown Memory Project.

FURTHER READING AND VIEWING:

Harvard Fired Researcher Who Found Too Many Slaves - The Guardian (2025)

Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities by Craig Wilder (2013)

Exclusion U (2023): Excellent documentary about Ivy League schools’ hoarding of endowments and lack of accountability in providing public benefit, despite tax-free status.

RICHARD CELLINI’S RELATED WORK:

Georgetown Memory Project

10 Million Names Project

HIGHLIGHTS OF EPISODE

[9:54] Richard Cellini tapped to lead Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program

[13:56] Richard breaks down the numbers of people enslaved by Harvard and their descendants

[22:55] Strong pushback from Harvard officials for “finding too many descendants”

[30:29] Entire team fired with no reasons given

[33:47] Harvard’s non-action and abandonment of project

[39:00] Richard tallies the number of enslaved people and descendants identified

[47:16] Adam and Tony discuss how Harvard could make real reparations

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Dr. King died for his commitment to radically transforming our country. With today’s brazen piracy by the billionaires and Black America under permanent siege, King’s goals have never been more timely. Cutting-edge truth-tellers Aaron Good and Bryce Greene join us to hash it out - and see what real reparations could look like.

SHOW NOTES

Aaron Good and Bryce Green links:

• Aaron's book American Exception: Empire and the Deep State
• Aaron's American Exception podcast
• Bryce's Substack newsletter
• "After The Uprising": podcast about mysterious deaths of Black Ferguson activists

More from Martin Luther King:

• Dr. King Making The Case For Reparations
• Dr. King's Poor People's Campaign
• Selected quotes:
  • “We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there ‘is’ such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”
  • “As my sufferings mounted, I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation — either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.”
  • “We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil.”

Books by William Pepper on the King assassination:

• Orders to Kill (1998)
• An Act of State (2003)
• The Plot To Kill King (2018)

HIGHLIGHTS OF EPISODE

[8:43] Significance of King assassination today

[11:20] Connection between the assassination and case for reparations

[16:28] Lawsuit by King Family finding government plot to kill King

[22:52] King assassination as government subversion of democracy

[31:25] Role of media in deep government crimes

[42:51] Structural transformation needed for real reparations

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