Symbolism and History in Philadelphia Fire

Philadelphia Fire primarily covers the MOVE bombing tangentially. The true focus of the novel is on the city of Philadelphia and its inhabitants; the bombing functions as a Philadelphian tragedy and a pivotal event that impacts people living in the city. However, when the MOVE bombing is addressed directly, it is done so with imagery and interrelated stories. In Philadelphia Fire, John Edgar Wideman engages with MOVE and the bombing of the Osage Avenue MOVE house by utilizing symbolism and American history to comment on the police murder of the eleven people at Osage Avenue.

The symbol of fire is prevalent throughout the novel. Fire’s relation to the bombing of the MOVE compound is obvious; the bomb cause a fire that resulted in the deaths of the house’s occupants and the burning of its neighborhood. Wideman quotes a letter addressed to Mayor Wilson Goode by Ramona Africa, given to police a letter addressed to Mayor Goode, two days before the bombing: “The raid will not be swift and it will not be clean. It's gone to be a mess. If MOVE go down, not only will everybody in this block go down, the knee joints of America will break and the body of America soon fall. We going to burn them with smoke, gas, fire, bullets. We will burn this house down and burn you up with us” (Wideman 109-110). Africa herself utilizes fire as a symbol in her emphasizing of MOVE’s refusal to surrender to police. In burning MOVE, she says, the police will burn themselves, igniting a fire of resistance within the communities they continue to oppress. By his inclusion of this message, Wideman both demonstrates its significance in the message he crafts and justifies his use of the fire symbol in discussion of fire-based death. He goes on to quote The Psychoanalysis of Fire, saying, “At all times and in all fields the explanation by fire is a rich explanation” (109). Wideman cements fire as something primal, an original tool of humanity containing a multitude of meanings and uses. Fire is a source of legends and religious canon, or, more concretely, of food and warmth. Fire is a weapon both of the oppressor and the oppressed. This proposition culminates during the scantily-attended memorial service for those killed by the bomb. He describes one of the speaker’s eulogies:

Fire. Fire. Fire. A hymn to death and rebirth by fire. Fire the word each time his fist 

smashes into his hand. Fire the chorus prodding the drums louder, faster. Fire Fire Fire. 

As you live. So you shall die. By fire fire fire. And those who kill by fire shall die by fire 

fire fire. … Fire burns and is transformed from word to force by this man's chant and 

curse and prophecy (196).

The young man copes with his grief by describing fire’s cleansing and restorative nature, drawing to mind the legend of the phoenix ascending from its own ashes. This allusion is both an expression of grief and a call to action, seeming almost to build off of Africa’s ultimatum to Goode. The MOVE house may burn and the theft of life may seem useless, but from the fire will grow increased opposition to the state. The speaker adapts the fire symbol to further express his rage, promising death by fire for all those who are guilty of the MOVE bombing. Following the description of this speech, Wideman concludes by saying, “The dreadlocked man promised more fire next time” (198). This suggests James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, a collection of essays dealing with race and religion. This draws in further outside references to the symbol of fire while cementing the MOVE bombing as being a result of institutional racism and militarism.

    The symbolism of fire as it relates to the MOVE bombing informs the reactions of the wider Philadelphian and American communities. It is necessary because of its close relation to the tragedy itself, but it also elicits thoughts of past instances of racist violence in America. When a little Black girl fails to understand a Johnny Carson joke about tents, Wideman describes what she imagines:

Horses snorting and spurs jingle-jangling the blue men gallop down a hill, toward the 

snowy riverbank where Indians sleeping peacefully cause they don't know what's 

dropping out the sky on their heads. Cannon fire. Snow churned blood red. She thinks of 

that. The time she'd seen that late movie on TV and babies running naked in the cold, 

yelling for their mommas, their mommas chased by men with swords on horses, 

hollering, cutting the women down in the snow. One Indian lady naked as the babies, her 

clothes blowed all off her. … She didn't know what was funny but smiled anyway 

(135-136).

This cinematic portrayal of American soldiers slaughtering Indigenous people uses images that mirror the MOVE bombing. In particular, the visuals of the the running woman and the naked children are reminiscent of Ramona Africa and the running naked child form the Osage Avenue house for whom Cudjoe searches in vain. The relation between colonialist violence toward Black Americans and Native Americans is further cemented by J.B.’s musing. Thinking of the bombing, he ponders:

… Osage Avenue. Street named for an Indian tribe. Haunted by Indian ghosts - Schuykill, 

Manayunk, Wissahickon, Susquehanna, Moyamensing, Wingohocking, Tioga - the rivers 

bronzed in memory of their copper, flame-colored bodies, the tinsel of their names 

gilding the ruined city. … They play cowboys and Indians. Colored and white with real 

guns. Shots exchanged over Cobb Creek and one player falls down forever. (159-160).

Wideman describes Philadelphia as decorated with Indigenous names. This continues the idea of diversity for show, posited by the novel’s coverage of Goode, Philadelphia’s first Black mayor. The United States has decimated Native Americans and destroyed their communities, nearly succeeding in making them a thing of the past. Having done this, the country may be comfortable using them to accessorize their cities in a caricature of respect. The country continually attempted to accomplish the same feat with Black Americans, and feels secure enough in their success that they can drop a bomb on a Philadelphia neighborhood without fear of reprisal. Based on Wideman’s analysis, Goode acts as the decorative arm of this oppressive force. His role as the mayor of Philadelphia is used simultaneously to negate concerns surrounding anti-Blackness and to move forward policy harming Black Philadelphians and promoting state violence under the guise of progressiveness. The descriptions of the little girl laughing at the teepee joke even though she does not know why and of firefights as games of cowboys and Indians further this thread. The United States commits these atrocities but commodifies them to such an extent that they become little more than memories and topics of entertainment.

    John Wideman utilizes multiple techniques to analyze the bombing of MOVE on Osage Avenue. By discussing fire as a symbol and drawing connections between the United States’ history of violently oppressing racial minorities, he creates a picture of the MOVE bombing as a culmination of this historical violence that intensified already existing grief and rage within the Black community.