PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Representatives from the University of Pennsylvania have reached out to the MOVE organization. The academic institution recently apologized to the group after it was discovered that a Penn professor had kept the bones of two children killed during the 1985 MOVE Bombing.
The story broke in recent days that individuals who worked in the University of Pennsylvania anthropology department had kept the bones of Tree Africa, 14, and Delisha Africa, 12, for roughly 35 years.
The girls were two of the 11 people killed on May 13, 1985 when the City of Philadelphia dropped a bomb on the MOVE compound in Cobbs Creek.
MOVE and its supporters marched and rallied outside of Penn Museum on Spruce Street Wednesday, with plenty of questions and demands.
Activist Abdul Aliy Muhammad broke the story.
"There will be accountability because Tree and Delisha Africa deserve sacred rest," he said at the rally.
“Where are the rest of the people? Because we know if they took Tree and Delisha, they didn’t leave the others behind," Michael Africa, Jr. said while standing surrounded by scores of demonstrators.
"It hurts. Every time I think about it, it takes me back to 1985."
Mike was six when the MOVE tragedy happened. But he told the crowd he remembers Tree and Delisha.
In 1985, the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office asked Penn experts to help identify the girls' remains, but they could not. Penn never returned the bones, and Michael Africa, Jr. said that Penn Museum Curator-in-Charge of Physical Anthropology Janet Monge used them as part of a class. Their remains were also taken to Princeton University for a time.
“That monster, Janet Monge, is seen in a video describing how my sister probably suffers a fracture because something landed on her,” Michael Africa, Jr. said.
Penn has apologized, promises to return the remains, investigate its practices and seek resolution. Read their statement here.
MOVE supporters say it’s not enough. They want restitution, for Monge to be fired and for the city to free Mumia Abu-Jamal. He was sentenced to life in prison for the killing of police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981, despite saying someone else shot Faulkner and that police officers abused him.