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E-book
Author Evans, Richard Kent, author.

Title MOVE : an American religion / Richard Kent Evans
Published New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, [2020]

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Description 1 online resource (xvi, 282 pages)
Contents Cover -- MOVE -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- A Note on Sources -- A Note on Labels and Names -- Introduction: Religion Unrecognized -- 1. Conversions -- 2. Belief and Practice -- 3. Progress -- 4. Pastoral Power -- 5. Policing Religion -- 6. Religion on Trial -- 7. Building a Cult -- 8. Innocence -- 9. Unthinkable -- Conclusion: John Africa's Body -- Works Cited -- Index
Summary "This book is a religious history of MOVE, a small, mostly African American religious group devoted to the religious teachings of John Africa that emerged in Philadelphia in the early 1970s. MOVE is perhaps best known for the MOVE Bombing. In 1985, the Philadelphia Police Department-working in concert with federal and state law enforcement-attacked a home that MOVE people shared in West Philadelphia with hundreds of police officers and firefighters, tear gas, ten thousand rounds of ammunition, and improvised explosives. Most infamously, a police officer dropped a bomb containing C-4 explosives, which he had acquired from the FBI, from a helicopter onto the roof of the MOVE house. The bomb started a fire, which officials allowed to spread in hopes of burning MOVE people out of the house. Police officers fired upon MOVE people who tried to escape the flames. Eleven MOVE people died in the attack, including John Africa. Five of those who died were children. Based on never-before-seen law enforcement records and extensive archival and ethnographic research, MOVE: An American Religion reinterprets the history of MOVE from its origins in the late 1960s, its growth in the early 1970s, its conflicts with the United States government from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s, and its presence today. It is the first full-length academic study of MOVE since 1994 and is the first book to consider MOVE as a religion"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on July 06, 2020)
Subject Africa, John, 1931-1985.
MOVE (Organization)
SUBJECT MOVE (Organization) fast
Subject Cults -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia -- History -- 20th century
Religion and state -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia -- History -- 20th century
Black nationalism -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia -- History -- 20th century
Police-community relations -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia -- History -- 20th century
Black nationalism
Cults
Police-community relations
Race relations
Religion and state
SUBJECT Philadelphia (Pa.) -- Race relations -- History -- 20th century
Subject Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2019047207
ISBN 9780190058807
0190058803
9780190058784
0190058781
019005879X
9780190058791