Philadelphia Fire

Essay

The seventh novel by African American writer John Edgar Wideman (b. 1941), Philadelphia Fire is a complex fictional account of the MOVE bombing, the 1985 tragedy in which Philadelphia police used explosives to dislodge the Afrocentric, back-to-nature group MOVE from its West Philadelphia compound. The violent assault resulted in the loss of eleven lives, including five children, and the burning of an African American neighborhood. Wideman’s novel, published in 1990, examines questions of black social agency and organization-building and describes, in sensuous prose, the condition of Philadelphia during the 1980s. The novel depicts this period, especially the mayoralty of Wilson Goode (b. 1938), the city’s first black mayor, as one of urban decay, police brutality, violent crime, and renewal initiatives that tended to worsen the condition of poor, black Philadelphians while revitalizing the city center.

A black and white photograph of John Africa carrying a cardboard box of fruit
Vincent Leaphart (1931–85), better known by his chosen name John Africa, led MOVE until his death in the 1985 bombing of the group’s West Philadelphia headquarters. A character based on Africa, called “King,” plays a central role in the first part of Philadelphia Fire. (Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries)

Philadelphia Fire begins with a black expatriate writer named Cudjoe, who returns to Philadelphia from Europe to search for the sole survivor of the bombing, an almost mythical, naked black boy seen escaping the flames and who has since disappeared. Cudjoe’s obsessive search for the boy, whom he never locates, results in a stirring portrait of the bombed group’s leader—called “King” in the novel, based on MOVE founder John Africa (Vincent Leaphart, 1931-85)—and an insider’s view of Philadelphia politics. In the novel’s semiautobiographical second part, John Edgar Wideman appears as a character. He learns about the MOVE bombing from television, writes and works as a university professor, and grapples with the fate of an incarcerated, mentally ill son. The final part of the novel follows a college-educated, homeless black man, J.B. While scraping by in the streets, J.B. witnesses the suicide of a white Philadelphian who appears to have in his possession the sacred book written by “King.” The novel ends with Cudjoe’s presence in Old City at a sparsely attended memorial for the bombing victims and with the threat of renewed racial strife.

Published in the year when Philadelphia’s homicide rate hit an all-time high, Philadelphia Fire exposed a city struggling with crime and blight, the consequence of more than two decades of white flight, a declining tax base, and the definitive collapse of the city’s industrial economy. The novel offered a critical portrait of the administration of Wilson Goode, the Southern-born black mayor then still in office, who had greenlighted the assault on the MOVE row house. Wideman pictures the Goode mayoralty (1984-92) as enabling a black elite to prosper while business-friendly renewal projects further displaced poor, black Philadelphians to the impoverished margins. The lost black boy of the fire whom Cudjoe searches for recalls the sole child survivor of the MOVE bombing, 13-year-old Birdie Africa, later known as Michael Moses Ward (1971-2013). Some critics have seen the white Philadelphian who commits suicide in part three as inspired by Donald Glassey (b. c.1946), the social worker who helped the semiliterate John Africa collate his views into a document known as The Guidelines (referred to as the “Book of Life” in Fire) and who helped propagate his views.

In addition to representing historical figures, Philadelphia Fire lavishes the urban surface of Philadelphia with beautiful prose. The novel includes an ode to Clark Park, where much of the novel’s action takes place; an exposition on pick-up basketball tournaments in the city; and lyrical treatment of the swelter of Philadelphia summers. In writing the novel, Wideman drew upon firsthand knowledge of the city. A native of Pittsburgh, Wideman studied as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, where he later served on the faculty from 1967 to 1973.

A color photograph of John Edgar Wideman
Philadelphia Fire author John Edgar Wideman, a Pittsburgh native, attended the University of Pennsylvania. The novel, in which he also appears as a character in a semiautobiographical segment, won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and an American Book Award in 1991. (Wikimedia Commons)

Philadelphia Fire, which netted Wideman his second PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, has been seen as a literary record of potent racial and class divisions in Philadelphia; as a response to the apocalyptic warning for urban America found in James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time (1963); and as a novel of despair and anger in the wake of unfulfilled promises of the civil rights era. But some critics have also found in the novel’s postmodern literary aesthetic a recipe for racial progress and understanding. Wide-ranging interpretations have associated the novel’s plurality of voices and viewpoints with radical democracy, recovery from traumatic experience, and even Wideman’s reclaiming of his African heritage. Critics have agreed, however, on the novel’s significance in exploring the anguished racial meaning and aftermath of the MOVE bombing, a low-water mark in Philadelphia’s checkered history of race relations.

J. Bret Maney is Assistant Professor of English at the City University of New York. He lived in West Philadelphia, not far from the site of the MOVE bombing, while completing his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania.

Copyright 2019, Rutgers University

Gallery

John Edgar Wideman

Wikimedia Commons

Philadelphia Fire was written by John Edgar Wideman (b. 1941), who also appears as a character in the semiautobigraphical second segment. The Pittsburgh native attended Philadelphia’s University of Pennsylvania in the 1960s, and many of his fictional works take place in these two cities. In Philadelphia Fire, published in 1990, Wideman examines the politics, policing, urban renewal initiatives, and violent crime of Philadelphia through a fictional account of the 1985 MOVE complex bombing. The novel won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1991. Wideman had previously received this award for his 1983 novel, Sent for You Yesterday, making him the first author to win the award twice. Philadelphia Fire also earned an American Book Award in that year.

John Africa, 1981

Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries

Philadelphia Fire is a fictionalized account of the 1985 bombing of a West Philadelphia home owned by the controversial Black Power organization MOVE. Vincent Leaphart (1931–85), better known by his chosen name John Africa, founded the group in 1972 and served as its leader until his death in the bombing. Africa, a veteran of the Korean War, became disillusioned with modern American life and led his followers to adopt anarcho-primitivist philosophy and an Afro-centric lifestyle instead. The group engaged in numerous clashes with neighbors and Philadelphia police, including a 1978 shootout that ended in the death of police officer James J. Ramp (1926–78) and the arrests of nine MOVE members. On May 15, 1985, Philadelphia Mayor Wilson Goode (b. 1938) sent police to the group’s West Philadelphia headquarters. Officers used extreme measures to infiltrate the home on the 6200 block of Osage Avenue, finally resorting to dropping C4 explosives onto the roof. The resulting fire killed eleven people, including five children, and destroyed several blocks of the primarily black working-class Cobbs Creek neighborhood.

The character “King” is based on Africa and plays a central role in the first part of Philadelphia Fire. The fictional black writer Cudjoe begins obsessively searching for a child who was seen running naked out of the MOVE building as it burned. This journey creates a portrait of Africa and Philadelphia politics in the 1980s.

Related Topics

Time Periods

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Essays

Related Reading

Anderson, John and Hilary Hevenor. Burning Down the House: MOVE and the Tragedy of Philadelphia. New York: W. W. Norton, 1987.

Carden, Mary Paniccia. “‘If the City Is a Man’: Founders and Fathers, Cities and Sons in John Edgar Wideman’s Philadelphia Fire,” Contemporary Literature 44.3 (Fall 2003): 472-500.

Dubey, Madhu. “Literature and Urban Crisis: John Edgar Wideman’s Philadelphia Fire,” African American Review 32.4 (Winter 1998): 579-95.

Guzzio, Tracie Church. All Stories Are True: History, Myth, and Trauma in the Work of John Edgar Wideman. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2011.

Hogue, W. Lawrence. “Radical Democracy, African American (Male) Subjectivity, and John Edgar Wideman’s Philadelphia Fire,” MELUS 33.3 (Fall 2008): 45-69.

Mbalia, Doreatha Drummond. John Edgar Wideman: Reclaiming the African Personality. Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press, 1995.

Otter, Samuel. Philadelphia Stories: America’s Literature of Race and Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Simon, Roger D. and Brian Alnutt. “Philadelphia, 1982-2007: Toward the Postindustrial City,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 131.4 (2007): 395-444.

TuSmith, Bonnie and Keith E. Byerman. Critical Essays on John Edgar Wideman. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2006.

Varsava, Jerry. “ ‘Woven of Many Strands’: Multiple Subjectivity in John Edgar Wideman’s Philadelphia Fire,” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 41.4 (2000): 425-444.

Related Collections

John Edgar Wideman Papers, Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

MOVE Commission Records, Special Collections Research Center, Paley Library, Temple University, Philadelphia.

Related Places

Site of MOVE bombing, 6200 Block of Osage Avenue, Philadelphia.

Clark Park, Forty-Third Street and Baltimore Avenue, Philadelphia.

Links

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