WOMEN'S HERSTORY MONTH PROGRAM
March 20, 2024
SISTER LOVE: Ericka Huggins, Spiritual Wellness and the Black Panther Party
Mary Frances Phillips is a scholar-activist, public intellectual, and Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Lehman College, City University of New York. 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. In January 2025, her book, Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins, will be released as part of NYU Press’ Black Power Series. Black Panther Woman is 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.
In conversation with Professor Phillips, who is serving as our discussant, is Dr. Jakobi Williams, the Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor at Indiana University-Bloomington. He is Chair of the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies and holds a joint appointment in the Department of History. He is a scholar of Civil Rights, Black Power, Social Justice, and African American history. Professor Williams has provided hundreds of invited lectures domestically and abroad on Civil Rights and social justice movements. Dr. Williams has served as a consultant regarding Civil Rights issues and history for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Southern Poverty Law Center, The National Civil Rights Museum, The Social Justice Initiative at the University of Illinois-Chicago, and the Kairos-Center for Religion, Rights, and Social Justice—which helped to found the New Poor People’s Campaign led by Rev. Barber. His most recent book, From the Bullet to the Ballot: The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and Racial Coalition Politics in Chicago, was published by the University of North Carolina Press under the prestigious John Hope Franklin Series. The book was the foundation for the script for the Warner Brothers film Judas and the Black Messiah.