March 21, 2025

Civics

'There is no one answer to how we get free — there are one million.'

One Million Experiments began as a Google Doc created by American activist, organizer, educator, and author Mariame Kaba. The project emerged in response to the 2020 uprisings and growing calls to defund the police, as organizers faced pressure to propose alternatives to policing. The document cataloged various community-based safety initiatives—projects designed to foster well-being, reduce harm, and promote safety without relying on police or prisons.

This initiative has since expanded into a website featuring a curated collection of community-based safety projects, a regular podcast, a zine series offering deep dives into specific experiments, and a documentary film that examines safety in a world that addresses the root causes of crime and violence without relying on traditional law enforcement or incarceration.

The people and programs highlighted here serve as powerful sources of both inspiration and hope.

WEBSITE: One Million Experiments

Civics

Start where you live: Learning to see local power

BOOK: Hyperlocal: Place Governance in a Fragmented World

Civics

The places that hold us together

ARTICLE: Want to Support a Healthy Democracy? Start Here.

Civics

A pattern‑based approach to public problem‑solving

PDF: Pattern Languages for Public Problem‑Solving: Cultivating New Seeds for Social Change

Civics

America Unfinished: A plain-sight inventory of the state of the nation