The Phillips Community Oral History project is a joint effort by Alley Communications and the United Phillips Coalition, including Phillips West Neighborhood Organization (PWNO), East Phillips Improvement Coalition (EPIC), and Midtown Phillips Neighborhood Association, Inc. (MPNAI).
For over 75 years, The Phillips Community’s four Neighborhoods (made up of Phillips West, Midtown Phillips, East Phillips, and Ventura Village) have had a rich history of advocating for environmental, social, and cultural justice, making it one of the oldest organized Communities in the City. Phillips has been and continues to be a cultural epicenter of Minneapolis, providing a home to waves of immigrant and refugee populations. Named after prominent slavery abolitionist, Wendell Phillips, the Phillips Community is the ancestral land of the Dakota and home to one of the largest urban Indigenous populations in the country, in addition to being a settling location for formerly enslaved people and Scandinavian, Jewish, Southeast Asian, Latino/a/e/x, and East African populations.
The Phillips Community Oral History Project was born out of recognition that these histories have rarely been told by the people who lived them. Rather, Phillips has been subjected to narratives written about it, often by people who have little to no connection to the Community. While many negative narratives exist about Phillips, the voices of those who call the Neighborhoods home have often been overlooked, and much of their accounts have yet to be widely documented. The Phillips Community Oral History Project aims to document, amplify, and empower the multicultural and multi-generational voices of those in the Phillips Community to tell their own stories on their own terms.
Project Partners:
- J Randolph, Executive Director, Phillips West Neighborhood Organization
- Luke Gannon, Program Director, East Phillips Improvement Coalition & Midtown Phillips Neighborhood Association, Inc.
- Susan Gust, Board of Directors, Alley Communications
- Ella Kampelman, Community Organizer, Phillips West Neighborhood Organization
- Jarumi Hernandez, Director of Neighborhood Outreach, East Phillips Improvement Coalition & Midtown Phillips Neighborhood Association, Inc.
- Daemeah Karbeah, Communications Manager, East Phillips Improvement Coalition & Midtown Phillips Neighborhood Association, Inc.
- Michael Hessel-Mial, Lecturer, Writing Studies
CLA Story: Philips Community Oral History Project: Documenting and Amplifying a Community
