Research Interests
- Race, Women, and Gender in Social Movements (Post-1945)
- The Modern Black Freedom Struggle
- Black Power Studies
- Black Feminism
- Black Panther Party
- The Carceral State
- Wellness Studies
Research Description
Dr. Mary Frances Phillips is a historian of Black political life whose work addresses Black women’s activism, carceral conditions, and practices of wellness. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of African American Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Reframing Black political history, her work foregrounds Black women’s integrated practices of mind, body, and spirit as foundational to freedom struggles.
Her book, Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins (2025, NYU Press Black Power Series), is a critical study and biography of Black Panther Party veteran Ericka Huggins, one of the longest-serving women in the organization. Black Panther Woman documents women’s prison organizing, resistance, and the experiences of women political prisoners confronting state repression.
Phillips has published journal articles in SOULS: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society; Women’s Studies Quarterly; Western Journal of Black Studies; Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men; and Syllabus Journal.
Beyond the academy, her public scholarship appears in The Huffington Post, New Black Man (in Exile), Colorlines, Vibe Magazine, The Fulcrum, Black Youth Project, Word In Black, and the African American Intellectual History Society’s blog, Black Perspectives.
Phillips’s work has been featured in TIME Magazine, Ms. Magazine, OUT FM, the Detroit Free Press, the Illinois News Bureau, the New York Historical Women at the Center blog series, BronxNet Cable Television, Michigan Public Radio’s Stateside, WBAI Pacifica Radio in New York City, Connecticut Public Radio, Black Agenda Radio, and podcasts including Therapy for Black Girls, The Black Studies Podcast, and Drafting the Past: The Art and Craft of Writing History.
Education
Ph.D., African American and African Studies, Michigan State University
M.A., African American and African Studies, The Ohio State University
B.S., Health Studies, Michigan State University
Awards and Honors
Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins was named a finalist for both the 2026 Book Prize awarded by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History and the 2026 Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Memoir/Biography.
Phillips was also selected as a 2025–2026 University of Illinois System OpEd Project Public Voices Fellow. Her research has been supported by the Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies Initiative Grant at the City University of New York, the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Notre Dame, the American Association of University Women American Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship, the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics at the City University of New York Graduate Center, and the Faculty Fellowship Publication Program at the City University of New York.
Courses Taught
AFRO 250: Introduction to Health and Wellness in the Black Community
AFRO 383: History of Black Women's Activism
AFRO 381: Black Women and Film
Additional Campus Affiliations
Associate Professor, African American Studies
External Links
Highlighted Publications
Phillips, M. F. (2025). Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins. (Black Power; Vol. 6). NYU Press. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479802944.001.0001
Recent Publications
Phillips, M. F. (2025). Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins. (Black Power; Vol. 6). NYU Press. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479802944.001.0001
Harrison, R. L., Phillips, M. F., & Jackson, N. M. (2022). Introduction: Love Is Solidarity in Action. WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly, 50(1-2), 12-24. https://doi.org/10.1353/wsq.2022.0001
Phillips, M., Spencer, R. C., LeBlanc-Ernest, A. D., & Matthews, T. A. (2017). Ode to our feminist foremothers: The Intersectional Black Panther Party history project on collaborative praxis and fifty years of Panther history. Souls, 19(3), 241-260. https://doi.org/10.1080/10999949.2017.1390378
Phillips, M., & Angela LeBlanc-Ernest (2016). The Hidden Narratives: Recovering and (Re)Visioning the Community Activism of Men in the Black Panther Party. Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men, 5(1), 63-89. https://doi.org/10.2979/spectrum.5.1.04
Phillips, M. (2015). The Power of the First-Person Narrative: Ericka Huggins and the Black Panther Party. WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly, 43(3/4), 33-51. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43958548