Biography

Delbert Africa(1946-2020)

On May 13, 1985, Philadelphia police dropped two pounds of military explosives onto a city row house occupied by the radical group MOVE. The resulting fire was not fought for over an hour although firefighters were on the scene with water cannons in place. Five children and six adults were killed and sixty-one homes were destroyed by the six-alarm blaze, one of the largest in the city's history. This dramatic tragedy unfolds through an extraordinary visual record previously withheld from the public. It is a graphic illustration of how prejudice, intolerance and fear can lead to unthinkable acts of violence.

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Let the Fire Burn (2013)

Delbert Africa was a member of the organization MOVE, a black liberation group founded in 1972 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was one of nine members that were imprisoned on third-degree murder charges following an August 1978 armed standoff with Philadelphia police that left an officer dead and more than a dozen others injured. Africa maintained that he did not fire a gun that day, but was charged with third-degree murder and eventually sentenced to 30 to 100 years in state prison.

In January 2020, he was released after spending 42 years behind bars. He always maintained his innocence.