Penn Museum and the University of Pennsylvania apologized on Monday for storing the remains of a victim of the MOVE bombing and using it for teaching and research purposes, rather than returning them to the family.  

A spokesperson for the university told the Philadelphia Inquirer, “We understand the importance of reuniting the remains with the family and we are working now to find a respectful, consultative resolution. We are reassessing our practices of collecting, stewarding, displaying, and researching human remains.”  

Mike Africa, Jr., the host of Ona Move w/ Mike Africa podcast, criticized UPenn and Penn Museum for their actions.  

“It wasn’t an oversight; they’re talking about it; they’re teaching this and passing it around,” Africa told Black News Tonight host Marc Lamont Hill. 

In 1985, the Philadelphia State Police dropped two bombs out of a helicopter onto a house where members of the Black liberation group MOVE lived.

For Africa, the museum’s actions hit close to home.  

His parents, Debbie Sims Africa and Michael Africa Sr., are members of MOVE. They were charged with the death of a police officer in the 1970s. Law enforcement stormed the organization’s housing compound “using gunfire, tear gas, and water cannons,” according to Refinery 29. 

Africa Jr. had been working to free his parents from prison for years. His fight was documented in the HBO documentary 40 Years a Prisoner. Sims and Africa Sr. were released from prison in 2018.  

“I was under the [impression] that everyone was buried. I had no idea that anyone was keeping parts of them in a lab to study,” Africa Jr. told Hill. The remains are of a pelvic bone and part of a femur, which went back and forth between the museum and the university, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.   

UPenn launched an investigation into why the human remains were kept rather than returned to the family.  

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