Black Power Woman Author Event

We are delighted to celebrate Black Pather Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins with the author Dr. Mary Francis Phillips. Dr. Phillips will be conversation with Dr. Rhonda Williams, of Wayne State University. We are excited to host this during a great energy around the book in Detroit and during Womens History Month.

About the Event:

We will be hosting the event at our bookstore. You can indicate that you are attending or secure book at the link with Free or Book ticket. There will be a rich conversation and space for the Question and Answer, followed by a book signing line.

About the Book:

The first biography of Ericka Huggins, a queer Black woman who brought spiritual self-care practices to the Black Panther Party.
In this groundbreaking biography, Mary Frances Phillips immerses readers in the life and legacy of Ericka Huggins, a revered Black Panther Party member, as well as a mother, widow, educator, poet, and former political prisoner. In 1969, the police arrested Ericka Huggins along with Bobby Seale and fellow Black Panther Party members, who were accused of murdering Alex Rackley. This marked the beginning of her ordeal, as she became the subject of political persecution and a well-planned FBI COINTELPRO plot.
Drawing on never-before-seen archival sources, including Pr*son records, unpublished letters, photographs, FBI records, and oral histories, Phillips foregrounds the paramount role of self-care and community care in Huggins’s political journey, shedding light on Ericka’s use of spiritual wellness practices she developed during her incarceration. In Pr*son, Huggins was able to survive the repression and terror she faced while navigating motherhood through her unwavering commitment to spiritual practices. In showcasing this history, Phillips reveals the significance of spiritual wellness in the Black Panther Party and Black Power movement.

About the Author:

Mary Frances Phillips is a 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.

In Conversation with

Rhonda Y. Williams, known as "Dr. Rhonda," joined the Department of African American Studies as the Coleman A. Young Foundation Endowed Chair and Professor in August 2023. She came to Wayne State from Vanderbilt University where she served as the inaugural John L. Seigenthaler Chair in American History and Professor in History and African American Diaspora Studies. Her research focuses on low-income Black women's and marginalized people's experiences, everyday lives, politics, and social struggles. She is the author of the award-winning (2004) and (2015), a

"A remarkable story of awakening, commitment, grit, and fearlessness in the wake of personal pain, grassroots struggle, and state violence. This first-ever historical biography of Ericka Huggins is itself a meditation on the pertinence and power of spiritual wellness and encourages us to consider what a radically holistic movement for liberation might need. Wholly original and illuminating!" -Rhonda Y. Williams, author of Concrete Demands: The Search for Black Power in the 20th Century

"Both a memoir and an interpretive history of the Black Panther Party, Mary Frances Phillips gives us a tender rendering of Ericka Huggins's Pr*son organizing and path to spiritual wellness. The cross-fertilization of radical resistance with care strategies captures a more nuanced portrait of the Black Panther Party." -Ula Y. Taylor, author of The Promise of Patriarchy: Women and the Nation of Islam

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