Continuing Revolution 2023: Nurturing Experiments in Spiritually Grounded Abolition

Continuing Revolution, Pendle Hill’s annual conference for young adults (ages 18-35), is a space of collective exploration and learning for the spiritually curious who are striving to live in ways that reflect their values. We welcome those who are seeking to examine the connections between their spiritual, political, and interpersonal lives.

Download the Conference Schedule

Share the brochure with your community

Theme

Join young adult Friends and seekers (ages 18-35) gathering both online and at Pendle Hill to build community with others exploring abolition of police and policing. Building on themes and feedback from Continuing Revolution 2022: Experiments in Spiritually Grounded Abolition, we will focus this year on the relationship between individual and structural transformation. We will explore together definitions and practices of structural change, building skills for positioning ourselves in that work in our respective communities.

We will continue to draw on Mariame Kaba’s understanding of abolition as “a vision of a restructured society where we have everything that we need to live dignified lives.” Kaba notes that “abolition” is not a static or singular thing; the word is used by people of various political persuasions and imaginations, who “want to eliminate prisons, policing, and surveillance, and . . . want to create true safety, health, and well-being instead.” We will learn collectively from the tools, strategies, and processes that contemporary groups are using in local, national, and interpersonal communities, with an emphasis on the interaction between personal and structural work.

Come to Continuing Revolution 2023 to support and be supported in learning to make decisions that reflect your values and hopes for the building of abolitionist futures. Enjoy opportunities for reflection, sharing, worship, and skill-building with other young adults from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences in the nurturing environment of Pendle Hill, either online or in person.

Leaders

Additional leaders coming soon!

Lina Blount (she/her) is an organizer, trainer, and nonviolent action strategist who has been working on environmental justice campaigns in the Philadelphia area for over 12 years. Lina currently works as a Campaign Organizer with the Earth Quaker Action Team and previously served as Education Coordinator at Pendle Hill. Lina has also worked with the Divestment Student Network and spent two years as a canvass director and anti-fracking organizer in Pennsylvania.  Her first experience with Quaker worship was during a sit-in with EQAT and she considers EQAT her primary spiritual community.  She has supported Continuing Revolution as a coordinator since 2019.

Dwight Dunston is a West Philly-based facilitator, hip-hop artist, educator, and activist who has brought his creativity, care, and compassion to schools, community centers, retirement homes, festivals, and stadiums all over the country and internationally. His love of people and his belief that our stories and histories hold the key to our healing and wholeness has inspired him to design unique workshops, classes, and programs that support individuals to feel more rooted and heart-opened to themselves and to others. Dwight is the host of Pendle Hill’s podcast The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope.

K. Melchor Quick Hall is the author of Naming a Transnational Black Feminist Framework: Writing in Darkness and the co-editor, with Gwyn Kirk, of Mapping Gendered Ecologies: Engaging with and beyond Ecowomanism and Ecofeminism. She is the executive director of African American Education & Research Organization (AAERO) at Melchor-Quick Meeting House (MQMH), founded by her mother.

Jennifer Newman is a Quaker, theologian, writer, activist, and currently the Program Manager at Beacon Hill Friends House. She is a member of Beacon Hill Friends Meeting, New England Yearly Meeting, holds a Master of Theological Studies from Vanderbilt Divinity School, and spent several years working in advocacy around human rights, the public interest, and the environment before coming to BHFH. In addition to her work, Jen writes for the Barclay Press Illuminate series and serves on the NEYM host committee for gatherings on spiritual life and ministry. 

Felix Rosado (he/him) is Healing Futures Program Coordinator at the Youth Art & Self-empowerment Project. In July 2022, Felix came home after 27 years of fighting a death-by-incarceration sentence since age 18. While inside, he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from Villanova University, co-founded a restorative justice project, Let’s Circle Up, and led several other peace, justice, and abolition initiatives. Now on the outside, he continues his work towards building a world free of state and interpersonal violence while enjoying simple life pleasures like hanging out with loved ones, following Philly sport teams, eating sweets, and scrolling through the Nike app.

Kempis “Ghani” Songster ​is the Healing Futures Program Director at Youth Art and Self-empowerment Project. Ghani (he/him/his) joins us after three years as Amistad Law Project’s Healing Justice Organizer and host of ALP’s Move It Forward podcast. He is also a founding member of Right to Redemption, the Redemption Project and the Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration (CADBI), and co-founder and director of Ubuntu Philadelphia. Since his release in 2018 after thirty years in prison – starting when he was 15 years old – Ghani has emerged as a leader and visionary in Philadelphia’s movement to end mass incarceration and to create transformative and restorative responses to harm and violence. Ghani is leading YASP’s pilot Healing Futures Restorative Justice Diversion program.

Lewis Webb, Jr. is the U.S. peacebuilding director at the American Friends Service Committee leading its promotion of non-violent and diplomatic solutions to conflict by demonstrating the effectiveness of peacebuilding.  Lewis has previously led AFSC’s New York-based healing justice work for over 12 years and since 2017 been the coordinator of the organization’s national healing justice network. Since joining AFSC, Lewis has built an advocacy program that focuses on sentencing and the school-to-prison pipeline, established a growing youth advocacy training program, and guided the collective development and eventual organizational endorsement of “Our North Star: A Vision for Community Safety Beyond Prisons and Policing.” Lewis holds degrees in philosophy and law and has many years of experience as an educator. He is based in Philadelphia. 

nova george (all pronouns) is a wonderer and poet interested in worship and the ways faith informs imaginings and realities regarding community, belonging, and inclusion. nova’s eyes light up in conversation about the role of technology in spiritual education, liberation theologies, black literature as sacred text, and everyday ritual and spiritual practice. you might find nova lounging in a Brooklyn café having a cup of herbal tea, singing to a tree from their patio, or dreaming about the world they hope to co-create with all of you.

Lorraine “Mrs. Dee-Dee” Haw is an activist who advocates against mass incarceration. She organizes with CADBI, Free the Ballot, FAMM, HRC, SCI Phoenix Mann Up, Free Them to Heal Us, and Put People First. She loves football, reading Christian mysteries, and to fight for those who can’t fight for themselves. She grew up in North Philly with nine brothers and two sisters (she is number five out of the twelve!). She’s a mother to one son who is serving a Death By Incarceration sentence. As a kid, her favorite thing to do was play with her friends and going to the art museum and the zoo.

Lilia Fick (she/they) is a lifelong Friend, educator, Lover, healer, and Quaker elder coming from Ottawa, Ontario (unceded, unsurrendered Algonquin Anishinaabe territory). She’s worked with children for 25 years, been a birth doula, and served on Ministry & Counsel and as an elder. She recently completed a pastoral care training program and an Addictions & Community Services Worker college program. Their passions are: healing—self-healing, supporting others on their healing journeys, and working to help heal the collective toward greater health and wholeness; their faith and practice as a f/Friend; letting Love lead; and cultivating a deeper relationship with the wilder world around them and rewilding themself.

If you are seeking funds to participate in this program, review and complete our Financial Assistance Application and a Pendle Hill staff member will follow-up with you shortly. Thank you for your interest.

Travel directions to Pendle Hill. Please make sure to review our health and safety expectations at https://pendlehill.org/stay/covid-19-information/.