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For Ericka Huggins, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which she attended at just 15 years old, was a turning point in her life, inspiring her toward activism. She later joined the Black Panther Party, and after being incarcerated as a political prisoner, served as Director of the acclaimed Oakland Community School and became both the first Black person and the first woman appointed to the Alameda County Board of Education. She continues her activism work today in the fields of restorative justice and social change. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Mary Frances Phillips, Associate Professor in the Department of African American Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and author of Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins.
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is Vinyl Funk by Alisia from Pixabay, free for use under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Ericka Huggins at Occupy Oakland Protest on November 2, 2011,” by Clay@SU on Flickr, CC by 2.0.
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Mary Frances Phillips is a proud native of Detroit, Michigan. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of African American Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research areas include the Modern Black Freedom Struggle, Black Women’s Studies, and Black Feminism. She was selected as a 2021-2022 award recipient for a faculty fellowship with the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Notre Dame and the American Association of University Women Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship in 2018-2019. Her book manuscript, Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins (2025, New York University Press, Black Power Series), is the first and only biography on Ericka Huggins and documents the previously untold story of her early life and career in the Black Panther Party. The heart of her book excavates Huggins’ day-to-day experience and acts of political dissent during confinement.
She has published journal articles in SOULS: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society, the Women’s Studies Quarterly, the Western Journal of Black Studies, Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men, and the Syllabus Journal. Outside the academy, her essays have been featured in the Huffington Post, Ms. Magazine’s blog, New Black Man (in Exile), Colorlines, Vibe Magazine, Black Youth Project, and the African American Intellectual Society’s blog, Black Perspectives. Her work has garnered media attention in TIME Magazine, the New-York Historical Museum & Library Women at the Center blog series, the Detroit Free Press; BronxN… Read More
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