In late April of 1977, MOVE set up a sister organization called the "Seed of Wisdom" in Richmond, Virginia. In less than a week Virginia police provoked a minor confrontation by surrounding the house and attempting to take custody of the children.

Meanwhile, MOVE foresaw the possibility that Philadelphia police could storm their 33rd Street headquarters, kill those inside, and blame the victims for their own deaths in an operation similar to the type of government terrorism used against the Black Panthers. Information from sympathetic sources in city gov-ernment confirmed that plans for some type of police operation had indeed been made. To safeguard the Philadelphia base, MOVE staged a major demonstration May 20, 1977 on a platform outside their house. They demanded the release of their political prisoners and an end to the violent harassment by the city. To keep an increasingly brutal police force at bay, some members held firearms. Police tried to hold back a crowd of on-lookers, but the growing numbers of people soon broke through police lines and swarmed around the platform to hear MOVE speak.

Aware that the Third Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms on one's own property, Police Commissioner Joseph O'Neill told reporters, "Under the constitu-tion you have a right to speak your mind and apparently that's what they're doing." Yet four days later, the city sidestepped the lack of firearms violations by having Judge Lynne Abraham issue warrants for 11 MOVE members on riot charges and "possession of an instrument of crime." The media unfairly depicted MOVE as illegal gun-toting bandits.