John Africa (July 26, 1931 – May 13, 1985), born Vincent Leaphart, was the founder of MOVE, a Philadelphia-based, predominantly black organization active from the early 1970s and still active. He and his followers were killed at a residential home, which served as the headquarters of MOVE, in a fire after the Philadelphia Police Department bombed the house with C4-explosive, and deliberately let the fire rage until it was out of control following a standoff and firefight between MOVE and police. Life Born Vincent Leaphart on July 26, 1931, in the Mantua neighborhood of West Philadelphia. His father, Frederick Leaphart was a handyman while his mother Lennie Mae was a homemaker. He was one of ten children. Lennie Mae died suddenly in her early 40s, and Africa would later blame the hospital for her death. As a child he was "painfully thin" and underweight. At age 9 he was transferred to a school for slow learners to learn simple trades. He would continue to struggle in school and dropped out at age 16. Drafted by the US Army during the Korean War, Leaphart would serve over a year in an infantry unit. He would later remark on the contrast between the sunrise over the Korean mountains and the ugly gunfire of war. Upon his return he met Dorothy Clark and they were married shortly thereafter at the age of 29. She would later describe their marriage as ordinary and friends described Leaphart as levelheaded and dependable, also noting that Dorothy would help him with his reading and writing skills. In 1971 he moved his family to Powelton, a polyglot neighborhood in West Philadelphia, close to the University of Pennsylvania. Community Housing Inc., was a cooperative in which members pooled money together to buy a handful of buildings to live in with an idea to rebel against an oppressive society that bulldozed homes to make way to build more academic housing. Although the area had a large majority of academic residents, Leaphart was seen as eccentric yet tolerable as the area was diverse. Faced with foreclosure, the co-op stepped in and purchased his home so he could remain living there. In 1972, Leaphart changed his name to John Africa to represent the continent where life began. Africa managed to attract people in Philadelphia area who were willing to believe in his ideologies. He later met Donald Glassey, a social worker from