cover image In Goode Faith

In Goode Faith

W. Wilson Goode, Joann Stevens. Judson Press, $15 (316pp) ISBN 978-0-8170-1186-4

It is unfortunate that Goode, Philadelphia's first African American mayor (he held office from 1984-1992), will probably be remembered mainly for one of the most terrible events in his city's history. On May 13, 1985, the police department, trained by Goode's notorious predecessor Frank Rizzo (``I'm gonna make Attila the Hun look like a faggot'') bombed the headquarters of MOVE, a controversial, mostly black political group, killing 11 people and burning down a two-block residential area. Writing with Stevens, manager of news services at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Goode, now a faculty member at Eastern College in Pennsylvania, explains how the tragedy happened. He also recounts the astonishing story of his rise from sharecropper poverty in North Carolina through college and the military and into the maelstrom of politics in the City of Brotherly Love, where he evidently never learned to mistrust anyone, causing a newspaper to describe him as ``too good to be mayor.'' Photos not seen by PW. 15,000 first printing; $40,000 ad/promo. (Oct.)