reparationWorks advances the movement to heal and repair from the harms of settler colonialism and chattel slavery in Philly and beyond.

We seek repair on the levels of resource, Spirit, and relationship toward the remembering of our connection with the kingdom of creation.

In our Philadelphia, being is the basis for thriving.

|

In our Philadelphia, being is the basis for thriving. |

We dream of a lush, thriving Philadelphia where we collectively nourish a rigorous culture of care and healing that in turn nourishes each of us, our families and communities, and all our relations (the planet we share).

In our city we resonate with the wealth of spirit in the land, and in turn, the land feeds our hearts and bellies as we live in community upon it.

We stroll down our streets at a human pace stopping to greet one another, because connection is our currency, and relationship our religion.

We thrive in a culture of memory, accountability, and stewardship of the land, and flourish in an ecosystem of dignity in housing, food access, and mutual care.

Our dream for West Philly:

Our dream for West Philly:

Porches are portals to story and connection, where parks invite the flying of kites and gatherings in light and making.

All the businesses are co-ops and the language of collective business running and discernment is a common language.

Each block gathers monthly and shares celebration, concerns, needs, and dreams. We wonder and imagine together, leaning in to care for one another and celebrate our becoming.

  • Solar is on every house and the neighborhood produces enough electricity for Parkside and Germantown.

    The real estate developers are supplanted by giant and small land trusts and there are acres and acres of community gardens.

    Sumptuous community dinners in the graveyard, where folks weekly gather to share stories and dance and make music together.

    Reparations have transformed the spiritual and wealth landscape. There is a culture of dignity in housing, food access, and community well being.

    Mill Creek runs through the neighborhood again as a center of life and imagining. Folks canoe, lallygag, build giant puppets, and eat pawpaws on the banks.

    There are no cops. Circle practice is how we lean into conflict, harm, and healing. Repair is how we live and how we connect. Healing/body practice is in every park, porch, and library.

    The Lenni Lenape have land back. Their knowings are centered and honored. People not only remember the stories of the land before dispossession but also the the story of the taking. We remember that enough to resist the colonial urge still in our muscles.

    When people walk down the street it takes hours because folks stop and greet one another and there is no rushing. Connection is the currency, relationship the religion.

    No one is a stranger.

    Qi gong and dancing circles are everywhere.

    Paintings of our community vision are on every block like the Zapatistas vision of the restoration of the commons. We look and see the vision being realized.

    The library offers not only books but also records and welcomes the stories of the community to be told or embodied or in video, dance or murals.

    Study circles come together to learn skills, remember the ancestors, read, and learn from each other and consider what that means for the community.

    The community is invited to turn every trolley into an art trolley. There are annual trolley decorating days where people turn the trolleys into the visions they carry for their lives as well as depict the community and their spiritual selves.

    When someone visits they feel the wholeness; They can sense and taste the ease and welcome.

    We make plays of our own stories and teach each other how to perform them.

    What one loves becomes what one can share and offer. Being is the basis for thriving.

    See this vision on its own page.

Meet Our Team

Co-Director, Grassroots Cultivation

|

Co-Director, Grassroots Cultivation |

Anthony Smith

  • Anthony Smith is co-director of reparationWorks. He is a West Philly based organizer and educator. He worked in the Philadelphia school district and in other youth development sectors, primarily as a Social Studies teacher for 7 years. In that capacity, he has undergone and facilitated restorative justice trainings for staff and students alike in which the question, “what harm has been caused, and how can that harm be repaired?” was paramount. His lessons were primarily concerned with the social determinants of health, and how the systems of housing, healthcare, education and justice affect our ability to co-exist in full humanity with each other. Anthony has been organizing primarily around addressing police violence and building independent political power for Black and Brown community members through direct action, political education, and mutual aid. Through identifying issues with policing and carceral punishment, he understood that a mass relocation of resources must occur not only to address the harm that has been done, but to prevent carceral and exploitative institutions from operating in the first place. He has worked with and contributed to organizations such as Philly for REAL Justice, the Philly Black Radical Collective, Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal, W.e.b Du Bois School for Abolition and Reconstruction, and Food not Bombs Solidarity. He has been recognized by his students through awards such as YouthBuild’s 2021 Teacher Recognition award, recognized by the city through the 2018 Mayor’s Award for Distinguished National Service, and recognized by his community through the 2023 Radical Truth Teller Award. He is a lover of art and design, of music and the various forms of storytelling from oration to poetry to video games to books

Lucy Duncan

Co-Director, Faith-based Organizing

|

Co-Director, Faith-based Organizing |

  • Lucy is reparationWorks co-director with a focus on organizing. In that role she guides rW’s efforts to catalyze the coherence, vibrancy, and momentum of Philly’s emerging reparations ecosystem. She is a racial justice organizer and educator who has worked for decades supporting white people in becoming co-conspirators for racial justice. From 2022 until recently she served as Truth and Reparations Co-Fellow (with Rob Peagler) for the Truth Telling Project and Grassroots Reparations Campaign. From 2020 until 2023 she served as co-chair of the Philadelphia Mayor's Commission on Faith-Based and Interfaith Affairs, launching a campaign to invite 100 congregations into sincere reparations work, which continues under the stewardship of the Rise up for Reparations Campaign steering committee. From 2011 until 2022 she served as Director of Friends Relations for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). In that role she was lead organizer and  co-facilitator for Radical Acting in Faith for white people and co-conceived and birthed the ongoing Quakers Uprooting Racism community of practice project. She has published many articles on working to end white supremacy including the 2023 “Reparations and Transgenerational Healing” in Friends Journal. She is a member of Green Street Friends Meeting (a congregation of the Quaker regional body Philadelphia Yearly Meeting), founded their Reparations committee which inspired the meeting to budget $500,000 toward reparations in 2021. In the early 90s she co-founded the storytelling troupe, The Five Bright Chicks, and co-hosted a storytelling radio show for three years. She uses storytelling as a tool for enlivening community and understands reparations as a powerful vehicle to remake the world beyond colonialism, capitalism, and white supremacy. Lucy enjoys leaning into the reparative belief that the past is alive with us in the present. She lived in a Quaker cemetery for 15 years, her son who was born there is currently a grave digger, and she takes her daily morning constitutional in a nearby Victorian cemetery.

Kiasha Huling

Community Organizer, Grassroots Cultivation

|

Community Organizer, Grassroots Cultivation |

  • Kiasha Huling is an experienced community steward. She is adept in organizing toward action, increasing capacity and connecting neighbors with resources that uplift and improve communities. As a Social Work and Public Health professional, Kiasha has galvanized populations around actions toward healthier communities through environmental reinvestment and increased greenspaces. Most recently, Kiasha served as the Director of Development for a national non-profit based in Philadelphia. Previously she served for several years as executive director of UC Green, a non-profit based in West Philadelphia that fosters connections to ways of making Philadelphia communities green through tree planting, gardening and other cooperative ventures. Kiasha created and directed the social work program for Sayre Health Center, a Penn partnered federally qualified health center on the campus of William L. Sayre High School in the Cobbs Creek section of West Philadelphia. Amidst managing health services and resources complicated by poverty, inequality and community disinvestment, Kiasha partnered with urban gardeners and created a sustainable CSA program for pre-diabetic patients and a weekly farmer’s market featuring produce grown and harvested by Sayre High School students. The freedom to explore, dream and grow in nature is a birthright for all humans. Kiasha works to realize that right for all.

Our Values

    • We are honest with one another

    • We are transparent

    • What we say and what we do are aligned
      We acknowledge, take ownership, and take corrective action when they don’t

    • We take time and create space to be human together

    • We work for repair when there are ruptures

    • We intentionally and strategically draw on emerging knowledge around trauma healing and chronic stress

    • We are intentional about understanding our complicity and how we are implicated, and/or harmed and how that affects each of us, and how we can all play a role in interrupting the cycle of harm and contribute to healing and repair

    • We embrace both/and thinking

    • We are willing to take the time necessary to stay in right relationship

    • We work in such a way that there is time for living

    • We look for root causes

    • We look for the highest leverage points for intervention

    • We look for the structure underneath behavior, and the beliefs underneath structure.

    • We take time to check in

    • We self-reflect and lean into self-awareness esp. about our socialization

    • We take time to get to know partners + community members

    • We are committed to repairing and maintaining relationships, even when the going gets tough

    • We don’t take what others say and do personally

    • We listen deeply

    • We embrace collective wisdom and knowledge

    • We lean in to teamwork and collaboration

    • We center  Spirit, relationship, and resources and continually reflect on how these are showing up in all our interactions

    • We recognize our shared humanity, and seek connection and healing via our efforts to evolve in how we engage with resources, relationship, and Spirit

    • We take time to celebrate andappreciate one another

    • We make space that invites the experience and expression of each

    • We take time to laugh together

    • We embrace the learning that is available through failure collectively and individually, we take time to reflect on our experiences in life and work

    • We welcome discomfort as a threshold to growth

    • We embrace many ways of knowing

    • We speak frankly and openly about power and access to resources

    • We move resources

    • We allow for emergence and stepping into the unknown

    • We lean into inquiry and exploration

    • We offer one another humility, delight, respect

    • We offer each other safe places to share fear and doubt