Ciara Williams, Board Chair
Ciara Williams is an environmental justice organizer from Chester, PA. Her work is centered around civic participation, history, and building intergenerational coalitions.
Ulicia Lawrence-Oladeinde, Vice-Chair
Ulicia Lawrence-Oladeinde is the Director of Community Education at Temple University Office of Community Relations. Ms. Lawrence-Oladeinde coordinates the Pan African Studies Community Education program which has provided community engagement and resources sharing for more than 40 years on Temple U campus. Her passion is developing programming through the Workforce Connection Hub for reentry services, digital inclusion and transitional education for all community members. She is an active Executive Board Member of Reconstruction Inc.
William Goldsby, Treasurer
Born in a cotton field, raised in Selma, Alabama and incarcerated for two violent offenses, both during the Jim Crow era, one in Selma, Alabama and the other while serving in the US Military. Attended Miles College an HBC in Birmingham, Alabama and graduated from Western Washington University with a B.A in Education. Two terms in Central America with the Peace Corp where responsibilities were with Youth Development and “Women-In-Transition.” Travelled to South Africa and interviewed members of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The founder and former Chair of Reconstruction, Incorporated, a 30-year old community capacity-building grassroots organization. Architect of the History and Reconstruction Project exploring Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, which impacts the behavior of society at large and specifically African Americans. Designed and teaches Situation Management as a method to realize a new justice paradigm. Co-authored Reconstructing Rage, Transformative Reentry in the Age of Mass Incarceration (2012) with Professor Townsand Price-Spratlen. His philosophy is that we must access our organic intelligence, manage our own perceptions and liberate our imagination.
Click to watch Grounded While Walls Fall (film by Zein Nakhoda), featuring William Goldsby as part of Philadelphia Assemble (2016-17).
Ben Felker-Quinn, Secretary
Ben Felker-Quinn is an educator, filmmaker and poet. He grew up in a little cement town in the Lehigh Valley, which is/was Lenape land fraudulently taken through the Walking Purchase of 1737. He studied philosophy and literature in Russia and helped translate an anthology of poetry (2016) from the Leningrad Siege. He has worked as a media-organizer on education justice campaigns with the Media Mobilizing Project and helped to found Schools Unifying Neighborhoods (Philly SUN). Since 2018, he has been producing videos as a worker-owner of Bonfire Media Collective.
Ben first encountered Reconstruction Inc in 2013 as a member of Decarcerate PA, and he looks forward to making trouble on the Board and in the PR-Outreach Committee.
Board of Directors
Frederica Hoffman, Board Member
Frederica Hoffman is a returning citizen who turned from a drug addict to a drug and alcohol counselor. She has been with Reconstruction for the past 15 years, concentrating most of her efforts with the Alumni Ex-offenders’ Association (AEA). She is a past Chair and current Administrative Coordinator. Aside from Reconstruction, she is a mother, grandmother, a Deacon at her church, and overall a truly grateful individual.
Raymond Drayton, Board Member
Raymond Drayton is also an active member of Reconstruction’s Alumni Ex-Offenders Association. He has 14-years experience working with drug addictions in several different settings. He is also active in Enon Tabernacle Church, and he serves as a board member of In His Service, a local Christian non-profit. He has lived in Germantown almost 40 years. He wants to become the very best person he can be and work as hard as he can in every endeavor he’s a part of.
Rachel Ehrgood, Board Member
Rachel Ehrgood is a Philadelphia-based artist, mother, partner, teacher, and program coordinator. In her professional role she facilitates a variety of art classes, curates displays, and facilitates community placemaking. In the past 10 years Rachel has organized partnerships and facilitated with West Philadelphia High School, Achieving Independence Center, Youth Health Empowerment Program, Mural Arts Program, Project HOME, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, Philadelphia Museum of Fine Art, The Barnes Foundation, Studio Incamminati, and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. In 2015 she received the Steppy Award from Resources for Human Development and in 2017 received a First Place Award for Social Enterprise from The Social Innovations Journal. Rachel’s personal practice of art through painting, photography and collage, expressively merges narratives from historical and current states of society into intricate landscapes.
Hakim Ali, Advisor
“Verily, Allaah (God) enjoins justice and righteous deeds and giving help to kith and kin.He forbids shameful and evil deeds, and injustice. He instructs you so that you may receive admonition”
–Holy Qur’an: 16:90
Hakim ‘Ali was born in North Carolina, and his family moved to Philadelphia, PA in 1948. He had 5 brothers (unfortunately one brother is now deceased) and 1 sister. Four brothers were adopted from the State by his Mother.
Hakim has been a practicing Muslim since 1969, and for many years has studied the Religion of Islam. He assisted in establishing a Muslim Student Association at Community College of Philadelphia.
Hakim has been a core member of Reconstruction, Inc for several decades, serving as Board Secretary and PR Coordinator. He now serves as an Advisor to Reconstruction Inc. He also facilitates an Islamic Studies Program in North Philly on a weekly basis, and since COVID-19 hit the country, he has held these classes via Zoom. He consider himself a “student” of Islamic Study, even though he has been Muslim for all these years, the tradition of Islam states that: “A Believer can never cease to learn something new about our Way of Life; We seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave.”
Watch Hakim tell his own story in “Walk in My Shoes” (2017) and “Beyond the Walls” (2007), both productions of the Theater of Witness.
Townsand Price-Spratlen, Advisor
Townsand Price-Spratlen (price-spratlen.1@osu.edu) is Associate Professor of Sociology at Ohio State University and served for many years as an Advisory Board member of Reconstruction, Inc. He has been an affiliate of the larger Reconstruction mission from its organizational origins. This includes contributing to the leadership of various initiatives over the years including the Gathering of Men and Community at SCI-Chester, collaborating with various Ohio State University units to co-organize the two-day symposium, “Global Citizenship Beyond the Carceral State,” and various other initiatives. Reconstruction II grew out of a 2010 Criminal Justice Research Center (CJRC) grant project he wrote. Our CJRC grant project funded the data collection for what became the book, Reconstructing Rage: Transformative Reentry in the Era of Mass Incarceration (co-authored with Reconstruction’s founder William Goldsby). Conference papers and community events at the American Sociological Association meetings, and other invited lectures. His work with Reconstruction II also includes our forthcoming Du Bois Review paper, “Reconstruction Has Stopped the Nonsense,” a visual ethnography of the Reconstruction documentary and its ongoing relevance to current returning citizenship and the deconstruction of the carceral state. His other related research output includes multiple papers being developed and currently being revised, that will be under journal review in the coming months.