Category: Radical Imagining

An open letter from Reconstruction’s founder William Goldsby

The purpose of this communication is to share briefly with you a piece of my personal story and to summarize the journey I have had with many of you within the past 30 years.  I hope that you get a sense of how I got here with Reconstruction, what’s happening now and the next chapter.

I was born in 1949 a few miles outside of Selma, Alabama. I was convicted twice of violent offenses during the Jim Crow era, and I have also been dishonorably discharged from the Army. The circumstances in which I was born did not successfully inject me into the control of a family structure, religious authority, the public education system or the public health care industrial complex.  During my childhood, my mom, dad and others near me paid me no mind, which left me to manage my own perceptions, maintain good mental hygiene, and to trust my organic intelligence.

My first time in Philadelphia was in 1988 after serving four years in Central America with the Peace Corps in Honduras and Guatemala.  This is when I first heard about the 1985 MOVE bombing which killed eleven, including five children, and was the driving force in my decision to come and live in Philadelphia. I was registering at the Community College of Philadelphia when I noticed on the bulletin board an announcement regarding a three-day event memorializing the MOVE victims. This event was sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).  Father Paul Washington presided over that second day which was a Saturday.  It took place on 4^th and Arch Street at the Quaker Meeting House. Hundreds of people were there of whom I knew none.  Father Washington asked, “How do we prevent such a tragedy from happening again?” My spirit moved me to stand and challenge any organization to meet me halfway to design a program that would address the rage of black men. 

Barbara Moffett who at that time was the director of the Community Relations Division of AFSC reached out to me to discuss my challenge. As a result, the AFSC Mid-Atlantic Meeting Executive Committee agreed to finance a 12-month feasibility study.  During this period, we formed an advisory council, a board of directors, decided that the name would be Reconstruction and we secured the 501c3 tax exempt status in 1991.  In addition, we had formal and incredible support from the African American Studies Department at Temple University, the University of Pennsylvania Hypertension Clinic, Philadelphia Department of Social Services, the Pennsylvania Department of Adult Probation and Parole, Philadelphia Public Defenders Association and the State Correctional Institute at Graterford. The strategies, processes and decisions that went into program development criteria, the selection of participants, and the development of resources, were decided upon and facilitated by an external advisory committee. That committee consisted of faith-based communities, academics, civic leaders and other concerned folks. The internal advisory committee consisted primarily of men who were serving life without the possibility of parole, administrators and some long timers.

I believe that no one is born with rage, nor is anyone immune from it. It is our circumstances that have nourished all behaviors. I think that rage is a compilation of unexpressed feelings. Though MOVE lives their lives based on shared principles, they expressed their rage with profanity and mirrored it back to the community, for which they were bombed.  Spiritually and politically, I unite with MOVE’s expression of that rage. When I defended myself because of fear and with my own version of rage in two separate incidents I was indicted and convicted of a violent offense on both occasions. These are some of the seeds from which Reconstruction’s work evolves.

The consensus of all the groups and people whom I’ve mentioned so far was that Reconstruction would facilitate a three-stage Afrocentric program at SCI Graterford.  According to the program’s basic criteria, all those included were men who had been convicted twice of violent offenses. The 1^st stage was 12 to 18 months and took place inside SCI Graterford. The 2^nd stage was in the Reconstruction residential facility for 1 year. The residential facility was a 6 unit apartment building donated for $1 by Ms. Emma Ward.  The 3^rd stage was two-years of after care and checking in. The curriculum, which was developed for the first cohort, has grown into the Reconstruction Community Capacity Building Curriculum (CCBC).

Reconstruction has adopted the philosophy that we are changing ourselves to change the world by uniting the many to defeat the few. We work to practice good mental hygiene and perception management while attempting to build capacity in this age of technological alienation/ community. The CCBC continues to evolve as it unearths and addresses this tension.  This curriculum also asks us to investigate our tendencies to indict and/or seek to help others without recognizing our own role in maintaining these larger paradigms of supremacy, especially when these paradigms conflict with “changing ourselves to change the world.” The aim of the CCBC is to build collective processes where we can all transcend any form of supremacy (whether that be white, Black, gender, class or any other form of dominance).  The CCBC has been taught in universities in various locales and is now being developed into a mobile app.

In 1993, the leadership of the Lifers Association at Graterford invited me to participate in a meeting hosted by them, some of their family members and other concerned people.  The original intent was to create a fund that would assist them to get access back into the court with their various cases.  We discovered this would be a major undertaking. So, after many meetings and much deliberation, we united behind politicizing the lifer’s plight by incorporating and taking the name Fight for Lifers (FFL).  We agreed to prioritize three focuses: Juvenile Life Without Parole, the contradictions within the commutation process, and the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA).  I volunteered to be at the center of FFL’s work in the spirit of reciprocity, and Reconstruction adopted FFL as its political domain in 2003.

Fight for Lifers has been one of five domains through which Reconstruction has operated as a 501c3 organization with each domain’s leadership coming from within domain membership. This has allowed Reconstruction to pursue its mission with a multi-faceted approach while remaining united in purpose with organizational support.  These five domains are:

1. Fight For Lifers (FFL), whose mission is to abolish the life sentence and/or add a number to it. It is also Reconstruction’s political arm.
2.  The Alumni Ex-offenders Association (AEA) which has a mission to politicize returning citizens.
3. Leadership, Education, Advocacy and Development (LEAD) is designed for youth to develop leadership and to make sense of the world they’ve inherited.
4. Reconstruction II is organized to be a think tank that does academic research and publication that supports the movement of abolition democracy.
5. Noble Pillars is an incubator where Reconstruction sponsors various community initiatives. In the past we have sponsored groups like: Youth Art and Self-Empowerment Project (YASP), the Human Rights Coalition (HRC), Let’s Get Free (LGF), the Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration (CADBI), DeCarcerate PA and the MOVE organization.

Very recently, these 5 domains have been unable to sustain a critical mass of membership and the work of maintaining the domains has grown beyond the capacity of current Reconstruction, Inc. leadership. Efforts have been made over the last several years to reconstruct Reconstruction, Inc, including two different attempts at new board leadership formations. But each was overwhelmed due to current personal, familiar and political issues within Reconstruction, Inc.. For this reason, the decision has been made to stop managing our 501c3 structure.  Reconstruction’s nonprofit status will be allowed to expire in July 2024.  Our ongoing program is and will continue to be our membership. And our objective is to engage each other using the CCBC to realize our philosophy on personal, familial and communal levels.

As one of the many founders of FFL, it is my strongest belief that family members MUST be at the center and give leadership to this work.  Family members were at the center of the change that occurred within JLWOP.  Since the objective is to support the lifers by supporting their families, it has become and remains to be the primary challenge in this work.  The recent dramatic drop in letters coming to FFL and the lack of attendance at meetings by loved ones suggests FFL is not currently seen as a vital organization. On the other hand, FFL has a well-known, respected and appreciated history and large presence in the movement against LWOP. We have been blessed to receive many generous donations from inside individuals and organizations and their families. The reciprocity alive in our common struggle cannot be understated.

Know that each of you are deeply appreciated for the contributions you have made in helping Fight for Lifers and Reconstruction realize its mission to date. We look forward to remaining in fellowship towards our collective liberation.  As we lean into our personal, social and economic    spiritual capital and brilliance to get more clarity, we will attempt to keep you informed. Feel free to reach out with questions. ONA MOVE!