This event has been canceled.
A Road of Our Own Making: Community Conversations on the Police, the Pandemic, and the People will bring together community members from all across Philadelphia, including activists, educators, artists, students, city council members, police accountability commission members, and police officers. Together they will meaningfully discuss the current challenges facing our city, document needs, and envision ways of working together toward empowering communities and achieving peace.
These virtual conversations will be hosted as webinars so that audiences can pose questions and considerations facilitated by poets, educators, and activists Ewuare Osayande and Rachel O’Hanlon-Rodriguez.
This conversation series opens Arch Street Meeting House as a virtual and physical space of community convening and conversations. Arch Street Meeting House is committed to the future of long-term community conversation and partnering artistic programming because we understand change-making is both a practice and a process.
As part of this vision, 'A Road of Our Own Making' will span six months. The first three conversations will be held virtually on Zoom, and the last three will be held in-person at Arch Street Meeting House. Participants and audience members are not required to take part in every session, feel free to sign up for the date and times that work best for you! To attend multiple conversations, please re-register for each individually through this link.
February 19th, 12 - 2 pm: Conversation #1 (virtual)
March 19th, 12 - 2 pm: Conversation #2 (virtual)
April 9th, 12 - 2 pm: Conversation #3 (virtual)
May 7th, 12 - 2 pm Conversation #4
(In-Person and outdoors at Arch Street Meeting House)
May 21st, 12 - 2 pm: Conversation #5
(In-Person and outdoors at Arch Street Meeting House)
June 11th, 12 - 2:30 pm: Celebration & Artistic Share Out
(In-Person and outdoors at Arch Street Meeting House)
Arch Street Meeting House is located at 320 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Limited on-site parking will be provided.
All in-person participants and attendees will follow guidelines from the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Public Health by remaining six feet apart and wearing a mask while indoors.
Rachel O’Hanlon-Rodriguez (she/they) is a Philly-based actor, poet, organizer, trauma-informed teaching artist, and facilitator. They are the Operations Associate of Spiral Q and serve as a member of the Artistic Squad of Delaware Shakespeare Theater. Rachel was trained in anti-racism facilitation through the Equity & Justice for Institutional Change program at No Dream Deferred in New Orleans, LA, and in trauma-informed teaching artistry through Stockton Rush Bartol. Drawing from these practices, and the transformative work of Adrienne Maree Brown and Prentis Hemphill, Rachel’s work is deeply rooted in harm reduction, healing, and building community through storytelling and conversation. To learn more about Rachel visit www.rachelohanlonrodriguez.com or find their poetry on Instagram @the.inter.section.
Ewuare Osayande is a social justice activist, educator, and author. He is the founder and principal of ORIJIN, a consultancy that provides intersectional anti-racist training and consultation for organizations. Osayande is the author of several books including Black Phoenix Uprising and Commemorating King: Speeches Honoring the Civil Rights Movement. He is a former adjunct professor of African American Studies at Rutgers University. Currently, he is pursuing a Juris Doctorate in law at UDC David A. Clarke School of Law in Washington, D.C.
Funding for this program is provided through the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience. Arch Street Meeting House has been a meeting place for Philadelphians to discuss activism for over 200 years and is glad to continue to be able to offer this space as a place of community, reflection, consensus building.
A core tenant of Quakerism is a belief in an individual, personal connection with the Inner Light. In hosting these conversations Arch Street Meeting House (ASMH) does not speak for the Quaker faith at large or any Quaker individually, the Board of Trustees of the Arch Street Meeting House Preservation Trust (ASMHPT), or the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (PYM), nor espouse any specific belief on the topics that will be discussed in these conversations outside of the Quaker testimonies.