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MY'STORY

The MOVE Fire

This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985 Philadelphia police fired thousands of rounds at the MOVE house, city officials approved dropping an explosive device on the roof, the resulting fire was allowed to burn, 11 people—including five children—died, and 61 homes were destroyed. Philadelphia City Council later called it a “brutal attack carried out by the City of Philadelphia on its own citizens” and acknowledged that no individual faced criminal consequences for the bombing. One timeline correction worth preserving for the BHP record: the major previous MOVE-police confrontation was August 8, 1978, about seven years before the bombing, not a year or two earlier. Officer James Ramp was killed, other police and firefighters were wounded, nine MOVE members were later convicted, and television cameras recorded police beating Delbert Africa during his arrest. The 1985 MOVE Commission later specifically criticized city planners for failing to adequately use lessons from that 1978 confrontation. And that actually strengthens the point you’re making: 1985 did not happen without precedent or institutional memory. There had already been a deadly confrontation with MOVE, years of conflict, negotiations and police involvement before Osage Avenue.

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BLACK FACTS
The Truths They Never Taught You...

The Violence That Helped Spark the NAACP

In August 1908, a white mob attacked Springfield, Illinois’s Black community, destroying homes and businesses and lynching two Black men. National outrage over the violence helped spur the movement that created the NAACP the following year.

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Wikipedia

Rechila

Rechila
King of the Suevi
Reign438–448
PredecessorHermeric
SuccessorRechiar
Bornc. 395
Germania
Died448
Mérida, Spain
Consorta Visigothic princess
IssueRechiar
Ricimer
FatherHermeric
ReligionGermanic paganism
Animation showing Rechila's conquests (438–48).

Rechila[1] (died 448) was the Suevic king of Galicia from 438 until his death. There are few primary sources for his life, but Hydatius was a contemporary Christian (non-Arian) chronicler in Galicia.

Timeline of the Suebic Kings

When his father, Hermeric, turned ill in 438, he retired from active political life (dying in 441) and handed the reins of government and the royal title over to his son.[2] He endeavoured to expand the Suevic kingdom to fill the vacuum left by the retiring Vandals and Alans. In 438 he defeated Andevotus, the comes Hispaniarum, on the river Genil (Singillio).[3] The Roman position in Iberia became so tenuous that three magistri utriusque militiae (masters of both services) were sent to the peninsula between 441 and 446.

Invading southern Iberia, Rechila took the provincial capitals of Mérida in 439 and Seville in 441.[4] These conquests were extremely significant, but nothing of the sequence of events leading to them is known. The provinces of Lusitania, Baetica, and Carthaginiensis were subjected to the Suevi with the exception of the Levante and the Mediterranean seaboard.[5]

Rechila was involved in near constant war with the Romans. While returning in 440 from his third embassy to the Suevi, the Roman legate Censorius was captured by Rechila near Mértola (Myrtilis). The king had him imprisoned for the remainder of his reign.

Rechila died a pagan in Mérida: gentilis moritur ("died a gentile") according to Hydatius, but Isidore of Seville, writing well over a century and a half later, and whose source was Hydatius, says ut ferunt, gentilitatis vitam finivit ("finished his life a gentile, so they say"). There is no reason, however, for accepting Isidore's doubts, which were probably precipitated by the fact that Rechila's son and successor was the Catholic Rechiar.[6] Some scholars have raised the contention that his father raised him that way in order to foster good relations with the Church and bring about the easy conversion of the Suevi.[7]

Rechila may have been the father or perhaps uncle of the magister militum Ricimer.[8]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ Spanish: Requila; in Portuguese: Réquila or Réquita.
  2. ^ Thompson, Romans and Barbarians, 165. Hermeric did not, as Isidore mistakenly believed, retain some royal powers after 438 (Thompson, 220).
  3. ^ Thompson, Romans and Barbarians, 173.
  4. ^ Thompson, Romans and Barbarians, 172.
  5. ^ Thompson, Romans and Barbarians, 182.
  6. ^ Thompson, Romans and Barbarians, 218 and 306 n30.
  7. ^ Thompson, "The Conversion of the Spanish Suevi", 79, who denies this.
  8. ^ Gillett, "The Birth of Ricimer".

Sources

[edit]
  • Gillett, Andrew. "The Birth of Ricimer." Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 44, 3 (1995): 380–84.
  • Thompson, E. A. "The Conversion of the Spanish Suevi to Catholicism." Edward James, ed., Visigothic Spain: New Approaches. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. ISBN 0-19-822543-1.
  • Thompson, E. A. Romans and Barbarians: The Decline of the Western Empire. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982. ISBN 0-299-08700-X.

Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.

Wikipedia

Rechila

Rechila (died 448) was the Suevic king of Galicia from 438 until his death. There are few primary sources for his life, but Hydatius was a contemporary Christian (non-Arian) chronicler in Galicia. When his father, Hermeric, turned ill in 438, he retired from active political life (dying in 441) and handed the reins of government and the royal title over to his son. He endeavoured to expand the Suevic kingdom to fill the vacuum left by the retiring Vandals and Alans. In 438 he defeated Andevotus, the comes Hispaniarum, on the river Genil (Singillio). The Roman position in Iberia became so tenuous that three magistri utriusque militiae (masters of both services) were sent to the peninsula between 441 and 446. Invading southern Iberia, Rechila took the provincial capitals of Mérida in 439 and Seville in 441. These conquests were extremely significant, but nothing of the sequence of events leading to them is known. The provinces of Lusitania, Baetica, and Carthaginiensis were subjected to the Suevi with the exception of the Levante and the Mediterranean seaboard. Rechila was involved in near constant war with the Romans. While returning in 440 from his third embassy to the Suevi, the Roman legate Censorius was captured by Rechila near Mértola (Myrtilis). The king had him imprisoned for the remainder of his reign. Rechila died a pagan in Mérida: gentilis moritur ("died a gentile") according to Hydatius, but Isidore of Seville, writing well over a century and a half later, and whose source was Hydatius, says ut ferunt, gentilitatis vitam finivit ("finished his life a gentile, so they say"). There is no reason, however, for accepting Isidore's doubts, which were probably precipitated by the fact that Rechila's son and successor was the Catholic Rechiar. Some scholars have raised the contention that his father raised him that way in order to foster good relations with the Church and bring about the easy conversion of the Suevi. Rechila may have been the father or perhaps uncle of the magister militum Ricimer.

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Wikipedia

Censorius

Censorius (died 448) was a count (comes) of the Western Roman Empire from 432 until his death. He is mentioned in the Chronicle of Hydatius under the years 432 and 440. In 432, 437, and 440 he was sent into Hispania as an ambassador to the Suevi. On his second expedition he was accompanied by the legate Fretimund. While returning from his third expedition he was captured by Rechila, the Suevic king, near Mértola (Myrtilis). He spent the next eight years in captivity before being executed by Agiulf at Seville (Hispalis). His execution may have some connection with the subsequent belligerent attitude of Rechila's successor, Rechiar, towards the Romans.

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Wikipedia

Vitus (magister militum)

Vitus was a Western Roman general appointed to the position of magister utriusque militiae and sent to recover Spain from Rechila's Suebi in 446. He led a combined Romano-Visigothic army into Carthaginiensis and Baetica, but his force was routed when it met the Suebi in battle.

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Wikipedia

448

Year 448 (CDXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Praetextatus and Zeno (or, less frequently, year 1201 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 448 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

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TOPIC OF THE DAY

Greenwood / Black Wall Street

Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.

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TRIVIA QUESTION OF THE DAY

What prosperous Tulsa district became widely known as “Black Wall Street”?

The Greenwood District.