MARY FRANCES PHILLIPS, Ph.D.

is a proud native of Detroit, Michigan. She is a historian, scholar-activist, public intellectual, and Associate Professor of African American Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her interdisciplinary research agenda focuses on race and gender in post-1945 social movements and the carceral state. Her scholarly interests include the Modern Black Freedom Struggle, Black Feminism, and Black Power Studies. 

Her book, Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins (2025, NYU Press’ Black Power Series), is both a critical study and biography of Black Panther Party veteran Ericka Huggins, one of the longest-serving women members of the organization. Her book historicizes women’s prison organizing, resistance, and collision with law enforcement of women political prisoners. Phillips 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 History 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, BronxNet Cable Television, Bronx News 12, WBAI Pacifica Radio, New York City, and WNPR, Connecticut Public Radio. 

Furthermore, Phillips research has been supported by the Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies Initiative (BRESI) Grant within 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 with the City University of New York.  She earned her Ph.D. in African American and African Studies from Michigan State University, M.A. in African American and African Studies from The Ohio State University, and B.S. in Health Studies from Michigan State University. She enjoys art on her nails and collecting dolls and Black figurines when she is not writing or teaching.