The bones of a Black girl killed by Philadephia Police, Katricia Dotson, were held at an Ivy League school, and activists want to know why.
According to The New York Times, Katricia’s bones were held at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn)’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. She was killed during the Philadelphia MOVE bombing in 1985, but her remains were believed to have been buried. The tragic incident involved Philadelphia police officers who dropped bombs on a city block home owned by members of the Black religious group MOVE.
MOVE, originally called the Christian Movement for Life, is an organization founded by leader John Africa in 1972. At least 11 people were killed by the blast, including John and five Black children: Rhonda Africa, Theresa Africa, Frank Africa, Conrad Africa, Tree Africa, Delisha Africa, Netta Africa, Little Phil Africa, Tomaso Africa, and Raymond Africa. Only one adult, Ramona Africa, survived.
Katricia’s bones being moved to UPenn wasn’t a secret but the fact that such a thing even occurred shocked many. Most of the bones were incorrectly marked as unidentified before being sent to the university for an “anthropological examination.” The remains joined UPenn’s extensive collection of unidentified Black and Brown bodies they stored before the American Revolution. The rest were returned to the deceased teen girl’s family at the time of her death for a funeral.
In 2019, a bizarre video surfaced of white museum curator Janet Monge showing burned fragments of the teen’s body. Janet described the bones as “juicy” on camera while showing off the fragments for a Princeton University course. However, the curator allegedly denied that the bones belonged to Katricia and is suing several parties (including the Ivy League school and NYT) for suggesting her actions were “racially motivated.”
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” a community organizer in West Philadelphia, Abdul-Aliy Muhammad, told NYT about the video.
UPenn has since acknowledged that the bones belonged to Katricia in an apology and arranged to have them sent to her family, but that wasn’t enough, her now-late mother expressed.
“Go to hell with that bullsh*t,” Consuewella Africa said at a news conference in April 2021. Months later, in June, she died after being hospitalized with lung issues.
