40 years ago, Philadelphia police bombed this Black neighborhood on live TV
07 May 2025

40 years ago, Philadelphia police bombed this Black neighborhood on live TV

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We're looking back on the day a Philadelphia police department helicopter dropped a bomb on a rowhouse in a middle-class neighborhood. Even though that bombing and the fire it set off killed eleven people and left hundreds homeless, it's been largely forgotten. So how did we collectively memory-hole an event this big? And what does that tell us about race and policing even today?

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