Former legal clinic supporting Black Germantown households at Green Street Friends (Photos shared with permission from Green Street Friends)

This Saturday, Green Street Friends Meeting is hosting a free estate planning presentation for Black residents of Germantown, specifically those from zip codes 19144 or 19138.

Estate planning, which may include preparing wills, powers of attorney, and advanced healthcare directives, is an important part of organizing an individual’s or family’s property and assets. 

It’s been a relatively popular free offering around the city, specifically targeting the Black community, with the aim of helping neighbors create and maintain generational wealth. Local organizations, such as Germantown United CDC and Mt. Airy CDC, have also hosted workshops on tangled titles and estate planning in the past year, addressing this very issue.

The need for these workshops is clear, as Pew’s new annual “State of the City” report indicates that homeownership decreased slightly between 2018 and 2023. Black residents have the lowest homeownership rate at 47.9%, with a steady decline from 2003 to 2023.

Estate planning is part of the Green Street Reparations Committee’s multi-year plan to commit $50,000 per year for ten years to fund reparations work, which includes specifically funding projects that benefit Black Germantown neighbors.

The group says one of the ways the reparations committee is redistributing resources for “economic and spiritual repair from the intergenerational harms of slavery,” and giving back to the community where their congregation has been located since the 1800s. 

Quakers were active slave traders in the early years of the United States’ formation. Their early participation led some Germantown Quakers to write one of the earliest petitions on record against slavery, naming it as morally wrong.

Gabbreell James has been a member of the Green Street Friends Meeting for the past 15 years and serves as one of the organizers on the reparations committee. She said the reparations working group, all volunteers, tried to decide what would maximize their efforts based on what they were hearing from neighbors as they started organizing their plans. 

“And so knowing that we have been this insular, this isolated community inside of this greater community, and how could we work to redistribute some of the wealth that we have accumulated over the last more than 100 years and use it in a way that is positive for our community,” said James. 

Two of James’ sisters are also members of Green Street Friends Meeting. Last year, one of her sisters died and didn’t have any estate planning prepared, and her family is still working through insurance and other logistics from her death.

James realized that she and other members of the committee also didn’t have all of their estate planning prepared, and they knew others were probably going through similar circumstances. This prompted them to have estate planning as their next event. 

Representatives from Philadelphia VIP and Community Legal Services will both be in attendance at this month’s event, presenting information on estate planning and providing support to individuals who may need assistance with document preparation. 

James points out that both Philadelphia VIP and CLS have guidelines for their pro bono work, which may be based on income or home ownership. However, she stresses that Black Germantown neighbors who may not qualify under their parameters should still participate, and the Green Street Reparations Committee is committed to connecting individuals with assistance from other lawyers if needed.

Lucy Duncan, a founding member of the reparations committee at Green Street, is also a co-director at reparationWorks, organizing around grassroots reparations work in Philadelphia. 

She says the meeting has been growing, and from her perspective, they’ve seen a greater sense of connectedness with Black Germantown neighbors in the last few years, thanks to the work the Green Street Reparations Committee has been doing.

Moving forward, she wants Green Street Meeting’s work to serve as an example for other faith communities to do regarding reparations.

“We’d love to build a network of congregations that are doing grassroots reparations, accountable to Black folks in Philadelphia,” said Duncan. “Because our vision is transformation and wealth redistribution on a pretty big scale through the faith community.”

The estate planning presentation will take place on Saturday, April 26, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Green Street Meetinghouse at 45 W School House Lane.

For more information or if you are an interested Black Germantown resident, you can register by emailing: greenstreetreparations@gmail.com. Questions can also be directed to the same email address.