May 12, 1985, 2020

Carnations. Included in exhibition Everything That’s Alive Moves, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia

Throughout the run of the exhibition carnations were offered to visitors. In 1907 the carnation became the emblem of Mother’s Day. Anna Jarvis West Virginia native who moved to Philadelphia, worked in the belief that a day of honor was needed, as she told The Philadelphia Inquirer in May 1913, “to make men and women realize their individual responsibility to right the wrongs of motherhood and childhood, not only in the home but also in the industrial world...” She began her campaign for a national Mother’s Day in 1905 and in 1914 the second Sunday of May was federally recognized as Mother’s Day. MOVE was a black liberation group based in West Philadelphia, founded in 1972. Their anarcho-primitivist lifestyle and political activities brought periodic confrontations with authorities. May 12, 1985 (Mother’s Day), local police served an eviction notice and arrest warrants to MOVE. On the following day, the most tragic exchange unfolded when a standoff ensued, with authorities ordering a police helicopter to drop a bomb on the MOVE compound. The resultant fire killed eleven MOVE members, including five children. The destruction destroyed approximately sixty-five neighboring houses. It was on Mother’s Day that police served warrants to MOVE.

Photo Credit: Constance Mensh