Farewell, with love, solidarity and hope for our future
To my beloved community:
My time as the Political Director of Reclaim Philadelphia is coming to an end. It has been an honor working with all of you and I’m excited at this opportunity to share my reflections as I continue on my path to power. While I may be departing for now, I hope to continue building the movement for justice with, and alongside, Reclaim in the future. I plan to continue to be involved in Reclaim because I’m deeply invested in our leaders, our community, our work, and our future. Reclaim has been my political home for 6+ years and despite making the choice to end my time as its Political Director, I want Reclaim to be healthy, to be powerful, and to prosper.
I’m planning to take some time to rest, heal, and recover. I’ll also prioritize reflection on my role in the movement, the work I want to lead on, and how I can be most impactful. Undoubtedly, my future work will intersect deeply with both Reclaim and the movement for justice more broadly.
I’m an organizer, so: in honor of my 6 years building Reclaim and Reclaim’s 6 year anniversary, will you join me in contributing $6, $16, $60 or $600?
As a co-founder of Reclaim Philadelphia, I have spent the past 6+ years building the organization, electing our leaders to office, developing relationships with other organizations, labor, and the media, and deeply investing in the leadership of community members citywide through training, political education, and mentorship. I’ve worked to build Reclaim with a team of leaders across the city from non-existent to an organization that is feared, has won cycle after cycle, and has more than 800 dues-paying members. Reclaim also became a founding organization of Pennsylvania Stands Up, a progressive organization with 6 chapters across the state and more than 2,000 dues-paying members. I’ve dedicated my life to doing this work because I want to live in a world that will recognize all of our humanity and treat us as individuals worth more than our labor.
The last few years have been immensely difficult for me — even outside of the collective trauma we’ve all faced through the pandemic. I’ve experienced the deaths of too many family members, spent weeks caring for my aunt/godmom in hospice, and experienced immense upheaval in my family. That compounded with being attacked by white supremacists at Marconi Plaza, facing the everyday traumas of organizing in this volatile world, and experiencing the typical harassment from right wing extremists that is hurled at movement leaders has been challenging. Because of Reclaim/PASU’s extensive PTO policy, I was able to take time off last year to give me space to survive and to begin processing and I’m deeply grateful for that. I’m especially appreciative of all the care, love, and support I’ve received from my comrades. Life has been made easier and more meaningful with that love.
I’m clear that the traumas my family continues to experience are the direct result of racial capitalism and the continued divestment from working people of all races. I’ve organized with my comrades at Reclaim because it is a collective that has allowed me to build power to fight back against this — to fight for a world that will one day care for my family, and will one day care for me.
Reflections on Key Political Accomplishments and Leadership Development
In 2017, Reclaim supported Larry Krasner for District Attorney. We were a core part of Krasner’s 2017 and 2021 victories. We took the movement to our neighbor’s doors, talked with them about what it would take to feel safe in our communities, and connected with them on how the criminal injustice system has harmed us all.
In 2018, I ran an insurgent campaign, elected Elizabeth Fiedler to State Representative, and organized and empowered our community to ensure she wasn’t forced to be a lone actor. We organized the campaign’s hundreds of volunteers to see their stake in running for committee person. Because of this, we didn’t just have a State Representative but we elected two movement ward leaders (Nikil Saval and Adams Rackes), dozens of committee people, and significant power for working people. Our team raised $165,000 from more than 1,000 individual contributions. We knocked on 50,000 doors and we won — with 51% of the vote in a 4 way race against Philadelphia’s strongest political machine.
And then I built upon that work. I continued to develop the leadership of community members across Philly through the Fiedler campaign into Reclaim Philadelphia which laid the foundation for the Nikil Saval for State Senate campaign. I recruited Nikil to run for State Senate and built out the campaign from the bottom up as his campaign manager.
We launched the campaign with the support of UNITE HERE. We then built a broad and unusual (some said impossible) coalition — uniting the building trades with Reclaim, PASU, Bernie Sanders, DSA, climate justice organizations, and more — to elect Nikil and to institute a visionary platform of Family Care, a Green New Deal, and a Homes Guarantee rooted in justice for all people.
We knew it was an uphill battle and everyone told us that it was impossible. The incumbent spent almost $1,000,000 and had the support of the establishment, real estate developers, oil and gas lobby, and the rest of the big bads. We had to shift our entire campaign strategy because the COVID-19 pandemic hit, mail in voting was suddenly a thing, polling places were massively consolidated, and our election day was pushed back. Our team raised over $406,000 from more than 5,700 individual contributions — with 97% coming from small donors. The campaign made more than 200,000 phone calls, sent 163,000 text messages, and safely knocked on 50,000 doors.
Our campaign wasn’t just a campaign but an invaluable resource for our neighbors. Our communities were struggling before the pandemic but once the pandemic hit, our neighbors were suddenly experiencing compounding crises with delayed and inadequate federal support. We sprung into action — our field team started including wellness checks on their calls. We asked people if they needed groceries, help with bills, help applying for PUA, or anything else. And then we set up systems of community care to deliver support for our neighbors. We created a new election day strategy and trained hundreds of volunteers as safety captains for every single polling location in the district to ensure people were able to safely cast their votes.
Despite everything being stacked against us, we won with 56.9% of the vote.
The base of leaders that made these campaigns and victories possible didn’t just appear out of nowhere. I’ve had the opportunity to invest in dozens of leaders in Philly and across the country through the training programs of both Reclaim and People’s Action, and have worked alongside them to fight for our communities. These leaders have collectively built powerful political cohorts across Philadelphia, run for and won elected office, and have gone on to lead both Reclaim’s and other organizations’ work. The most rewarding part of organizing for me has always been recognizing the talents and passions of everyday people and encouraging them to take political risks, develop clarity on their stake in these fights, and transform their individual shame into collective anger and action to enable them to more effectively fight for all of us.
So many people have invested in me (probably you reading this right now!) and I’m eternally grateful for that investment and for the community we’ve created together. I’ve been pushed, held accountable, agitated, trained, and questioned. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without the Reclaim community. I’m grateful for the trainings that I’ve attended as both a trainee, and eventually, a trainer with People’s Action — a national progressive advocacy and political organization made up of 40 organizations in 30 states across the country.
I’m also grateful for the relationships I’ve been fortunate enough to develop and deepen over the years with other organizations — particularly UniteHere, Free the Ballot, Teamsters BMWED, 215 People’s Alliance, Movement Alliance Project, Neighborhood Networks, and IBEW. I’ve learned so much from each organization and their members and have been thankful to collaborate with them on various projects throughout my time at Reclaim.
While it’s been a wild ride building this political project, what I’m most proud of is the leaders I’ve been able to develop, watch flourish, and support in building their own political power. I’ve been able to invest in so many leaders so deeply because of Reclaim’s continued investment in me as an organizer. I’ll highlight just three leaders:
Sergio Cea joined Reclaim in 2018 when he decided to run for committeeperson in the 46th ward. I’ve been working alongside him since then and have collaborated on building out our political work. Now, 4 years later, Sergio has run for (and won with a majority vote — although we’re going to have a legal fight!) the Ward Leader position in the 46th Democratic Ward. And after we built the foundation for democratic reform in the wards, Sergio took on a herculean effort organizing Reclaim’s committee person project citywide. He invited in other organizations to join us, trained countless people, and provided support and resources to empower community members to step up and run for office in their neighborhood. Because of our collective efforts, there are now close to a dozen open and democratic wards citywide — which will only keep growing. I’ve been proud to mentor him and am excited to see the direction he’ll take Reclaim’s political work as Interim Political Director.
Nikil Saval transitioned from a casual volunteer in the South Philly Bernie office in 2016 to a powerful leader in South Philly, a ward leader, and now a State Senator. As Senator, Nikil has launched the Whole Homes Repair Act which creates a one-stop shop for home repairs and weatherization while building out our workforce and creating new family-sustaining jobs in a growing field. It’s the first bill of its kind in the nation, making it so that Pennsylvanians can stay warm, safe, and dry in homes they can afford. I can’t even begin to list all the amazing things Nikil has done and am excited to see what he’ll continue to do.
Aileen Callaghan was an early volunteer with Reclaim and continues to take on many roles in the movement. Aileen has organized powerfully around education and school conditions, has served as a field organizer, ran Saval for PA’s field program, ran for office, and has mentored many leaders across the city. The base that Aileen has built in the Riverwards, an area where we both grew up, is exceptional. It’s been an honor to be able to build alongside him. I’ve grown so much from investing in Aileen and learned so much from him — someone who grew up in the same neighborhoods as me, who has struggled through similar things as me, and who is also a poor queer Irish Philadelphia. Building this movement with Aileen reminds me every day that people like us deserve to have a say in what happens in our communities.
Reflections on Where I’ve Fallen Short
We can’t win if we’re not winning for all of us. I take electoral work very seriously because of the potential for power for working people and also I see the cost that running campaigns, organizations, and electoral programs in the typical transactional way has on our movement. There hasn’t been a place for me and people like me in this work. And that’s not right. I’ve worked to create space for the leadership of people who have been intentionally and systematically excluded by systems and structures built on a foundation of patriarchal racial capitalism — both because it’s in my values and because it’s essential for us to build the power we need to transform PA. In many ways, I’ve succeeded in this and in other ways, I’ve failed.
While I’ve worked to recruit candidates, campaign staff, and volunteers of diverse backgrounds, the structures and systems of support we’re able to offer still can’t bridge the gap to make political work possible for many people. Candidates that I’ve recruited and worked with have been forced to drop out because we have been unable to organize the support they deserve and need to govern our communities. I’m committed to working to build better systems of support so single mothers, Black and brown folks, immigrants, trans and nonbinary folks, and poor people of all backgrounds are able to lead this work without it destabilizing our lives. While I’ve worked hard to fundraise, it has still been a struggle to continuously and sustainably find and organize the funding this work so desperately needs and deserves.
It’s essential to reflect on our failures to transform them into victories. I hope each of you reading this will commit to reflection and assessment because the stakes are too high for us to not learn from our errors and build upon them.
What’s Next for Me?
I’m exploring some exciting things for the future and hope to continue building the movement in new ways. I’ll be sure to keep you all posted as things develop!
As a white person, I have a stake in ending racism, white supremacy, and mass incarceration. I have a particular interest in organizing working class and poor white people because white people’s fears are weaponized against Black, brown, AAPI, and immigrant communities by the powers that be. But the 1% knows that if poor and working people of all races unite, the world would be transformed and they wouldn’t have power over us anymore. They want us apart, because when people like us are divided and unorganized, the overwhelmingly white and male 1% win and the rest of us suffer. A more caring and just future is possible.
I’ve seen glimmers of that future: after what happened at Marconi Plaza, I had so many people from our community show up for me. I received so much support, care, and love to help me heal. As I continue to experience the beautiful ways we’ve reimagined and reshaped community support, I wonder how different our world would be if we had a system that prioritizes rehabilitation over incarceration, healing over punishment, and people over profit.
That world is possible. We must use all of the tools in our tool box — vote, mobilize in the streets, demand justice, build deep relationships with our neighbors of all races, and join independent organizations like Reclaim Philadelphia.
Love, solidarity, and hope for our future,
Amanda <3
amanda.mcillmurray@gmail.com