From 1985: The bomb that shattered a civility | Chuck Stone

This column originally appeared in the Philadelphia Daily News on May 14, 1985. On Monday, Chuck Stone was honored with a special citation from the Pulitzer Prize Board.

Did Mayor Goode know the bomb would be dropped?

“I don’t know if he ordered that,” speculated husky, bearded Darryl in a hesitant defense of the mayor.

“This ain’t no McDonalds,” disgustedly snapped Elaine.

She’s right. Instead of hamburgers, over 60 houses were barbecued.

“I take full responsibility for the actions of my commissioners,” arrogantly boasted Goode, while shuffling and head-scratching with a dexterity that would have awed Stepin Fetchit.

The mayor suffers from the delusion that if he says something firmly and repetitively, it becomes an a posterori truth.

But Wily Willie doesn’t understand that the difference between the decisions to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and the concussion bomb on Osage Avenue is the difference between presidential guts and mayoral gutlessness.

A harsh assessment. And I concede Tuesday-morning hindsight after Monday night disaster because Victory finds a hundred fathers, but defeat is an orphan.

Still, two questions must be asked.

Would any of us acted any differently?

Could action have been taken that would have prevented over 60 houses from being burned to the ground?

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat its mistakes and that’s precisely what happened to Wilson Goode.

He forgot MOVE, 1978.

Yesterday, no police lives were lost but over 60 houses were destroyed in an action so massively irresponsible that it defies characterization.

Yet, for the last 12 hours, Wilson Goode has been standing in front of national television cameras, his bandana firmly in place, trying to convince a nation that he had not been administratively fiddling while Philadelphia burned.

Three facts cannot be denied.

1.) Goode dragged his heels for over a year. Neighbors protested to him. Residents complained to the police, one of whom was assaulted with a tire iron. Newspapers published stories. Yet, Goode failed to move on MOVE.

2.) Goode abdicated physical leadership in this MOVE crisis. For a mayor who will tapdance in a minute to cut a ribbon, dash in front of a television camera to guarantee skyboxes, take charge of getting a SEPTA bridge repaired, or try to mollify racial tensions during a community meeting, Goode was notoriously absent this time as “the man in charge.” Decision-making in a crisis is often reassured by a physical presence. Instead, Goode played hide-’n’-go-seek with the people of West Philadelphia. Should the mayor be here? a crowd in front of a barricade was asked. “Yes-s-s-s!” they yelled in unison.

3.) The dropping of the concussion bomb was regarded by most people in the area as unnecessarily barbaric. If Goode didn’t order it, who did?

The unknown answer has triggered an emotional war.

A black community which had united behind the imperative to remove MOVE is now divided by the results.

This is the dawning of the era of Philadelphia, A.B. (after the bomb), the act that has shattered the fragile reciprocity of our civility.

“They only drop bombs on black people,” angrily declared Elaine’s attractive teen-age daughter, Barbara.

“Most people are not in favor of a police state,” said Vincent Phaanla of South Africa and a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania.

“What happened here is just like South Africa.”

Louise Africa, owner of the destroyed house, is short, wiry and as tough as she is articulate. But the bomb shattered her usual outer reserve.

Earlier in the day, we had had a long chat. Afer the bomb, she walked up, placed her head against my chest. Her body began heaving in gasping sobs.

“How can they do that? How can they burn people alive?” she screamed, slowly sliding to the ground. One of her friends, LaVerne, gently picked her up amd carried her to a car that drove her away.

“This thing is going to spread,” warned a middle-aged homeowner. “Those people should have been arrested one by one as they came out during the last few months and the people would have approved it. But around the world, Third World leaders are saying, ‘You got a black mayor and it still didn’t do you any good.’ ”

A well-dressed 26-year-old lady who works for the U.S. government greeted the reporter.

“I think it’s horrible,” she said sadly. “I just don’t like to see people moved on this way. I live down the street and this can’t go on like this.”

A tall man with a mustache declared that “the mayor has been put on the spot, but I think he should be here. He controls it. I’m not blaming him, but he should be here.”

A young lady said “it’s kind of hard to relate to it as black people. They’re our people, but they wrong.”

The goateed man angrily shook his head. “It didn’t take to burn the children to get them out. I’m not a MOVE sympathizer, but that’s a cold shot.”

“A disgrace, cold-blooded, I hope they escaped,” said the woman volunteer worker for SCLC.

Bishop James Jones repeatedly asked, “Why isn’t the mayor out here?”

“They talk about filth,” said the corn-rowed woman in the dark blue blouse. “What about the rest of the ghettoes? How can they condone mass murder in the United States?”

The tall young man in the light blue golf jacket predicted, “Goode won’t be re-elected, he’ll be neglected.”

“I think he’s going to be a one-term mayor,” mournfully concluded Chauncey Campbell, an NAACP worker. “I had spent several hours on Sunday negotiating with Ramona Africa in the house and she was prepared to make a deal.”

“How can they do this? How can they burn people alive?” asked a shocked Louise Bovell, political activist.

“The mayor did the best he could,” replied a tall, athletic-looking man. ‘‘Damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. What would you have done?

“Caught between a rock and a hard place,” chimed in a red-haired young lady.

“Catch-22,” agreed an elderly man with a mustache and wearing a straw hat.

The sounds of a community dialogue, but the sound of an official bomb still lingered.

“I don’t think he ordered that,” said Darryl.

But what, if anything, has Wilson Goode ordered for Philadelphia’s future?