I’ve talked to many historians who have interviewed sources in order to write their histories over more than 70 episodes of Drafting the Past, but I don’t think any has spent quite as much time getting to know their subject in person as today’s guest. I’m Kate Carpenter, and in this episode I’m joined by Dr. Mary Frances Phillips to talk about her first book, Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins.
Mary is an associate professor of African American studies at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign and considers herself a historian and scholar-activist. Black Panther Woman is the first biography of Black Panther Party member Ericka Huggins, emphasizing Huggins’ use of spiritual wellness practices to care for herself and her community during her unjust incarceration and following her release. Mary and I talked about what it was like to write a book about a subject she had gotten to know so well. And while Black Panther Woman shared a subject with Mary’s dissertation, in many ways it was an entirely different project. We talked about that change, how she keeps a sense of joy and play in her writing even when the subject is difficult, and I pushed for details on her accountability system, because I know many of us could use ideas for keeping our writing projects on track.
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Mentioned in this episode:
- Mary Frances Phillips, Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins
- Dropbox
- Not that anyone asked, but I treated to myself to some stickers from Pipsticks for my own accountability tracking
- How to Run a Book Manuscript Workshop, from Your Words Unleashed
- Saidiya Hartman
- Kennedy Ryan
Transcript:
Untitled - November 10, 2025
00:00:00 Kate Carpenter: I have talked to many historians who have interviewed their sources in order to write their histories over more than seventy episodes of Drafting the Past. But I don't think any has spent quite as much time getting to know their subject in person as today's guest. I'm Kate Carpenter, and in this episode of Drafting the Past, I'm joined by Dr. Mary Frances Phillips to talk about her first book, Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins.
00:00:28 Mary Frances Phillips: Thank you. I'm so, so excited to be here.
00:00:32 Kate Carpenter: Mary is an associate professor of African American Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and considers herself a historian and scholar activist. Black Panther Woman is the first biography of Black Panther Party member Ericka Huggins, emphasizing Huggins's use of spiritual wellness practices to care for herself and her community during her unjust incarceration and following her release. Mary and I talked about what it was like to write a book about a subject she had gotten to know so well. And while Black Panther Woman shared a subject with Mary's dissertation, in many ways it was an entirely different project. We talked about that change, how she keeps a sense of joy and play in her writing, even when the subject is difficult. And I pushed her for some details on her accountability system, because I know many of us could use ideas for keeping our writing projects on track. I started by asking Mary to describe how her career as a writer evolved. Here's more of what Dr. Mary Frances Phillips had to say.
00:01:35 Mary Frances Phillips: So I started when I was writing my dissertation as a PhD student. The dissertation, at one level is the exercise of finishing a long term writing project. And then I published a couple journal articles from my research, from the dissertation, and then began working on the book. And the book took me in a very different direction on Ericka's life that I didn't cover, however, in my dissertation. It has all new research in the book, and writing the book took me years getting all that research, prison records, FBI documents, and years and years of interviews with Ericka and others who knew her. And so for me, writing is a process. It's about getting the ideas down, and then I consider the real writing for me happening doing the revision process. It's been an ongoing process. Um, but I think the book has taught me the craft in a much deeper way and doing the work and not just the writing part, but the research part of it in a way that I that's much more in depth than my dissertation journey took me on.
00:02:53 Kate Carpenter: Let's talk a little about the how of your writing. When and where do you like to do your writing?
00:02:58 Mary Frances Phillips: I like to write at home. That's where I'm most comfortable. In my own space, my own zone. Occasionally I write at a coffee shop with friends, but primarily I write at home. I also write in community on zoom with other black women historians. But I'm usually in my home office, you know, going deep into the work.
00:03:20 Kate Carpenter: Are there tools that you like to use? How do you organize yourself?
00:03:23 Mary Frances Phillips: Yeah. So when I'm working on a project, I use a lot of tools, particularly Dropbox. When I'm thinking about organizing my sources, organizing my materials, I have a lot of documents and archival documents. My secondary sources, literally everything within Dropbox is organized thematically by chapter, by section that I'm working on. But I'm very old school in a lot of ways. So I do have a lot of hard copies, and I prefer to hold the document and kind of go through the document that way, or the book or what have you. So that's the one of my more primary tools that I use is Dropbox. And then I do a lot of brainstorming as well as I am at the beginning stages of the manuscript, I also have also print a lot, revise a lot. I love colored pens and highlighters and markers and stickies and all of that kind of stuff. Is is really important. I have a whole accountability system as well. I'm a deep, serious planner. So, you know, I'm planning ahead of how I want to organize this, what sections I need to work on, what documents I need here. So those are kind of and I need all the tools to do that. So yeah.
00:04:52 Kate Carpenter: Tell me more about your accountability system.
00:04:54 Mary Frances Phillips: Oh my goodness. So my accountability system. So once I do my planning and I have, you know, whatever sections I'm going to work on how much writing I'm going to do in a particular day, usually first thing in the morning, I'm doing my writing because writing is hard, and I like to get the hard things out of the way in the morning. Once I have that goal and I've met that goal, I've started that goal I have. Honestly, I have a sticker collection and I use stickers as part of my, you know, so I bring a little bit of pleasure into the process. Like I said, writing is really, really hard. And so I have things around me in my home office that brings me joy to look at. It's, you know, motivational statements, or if it's things from my childhood that puts me in a space of play in a way that because it translates, it helps me do the kind of work that I want to do. And bringing that to the page.
00:05:54 Kate Carpenter: I recently ordered a whole bunch of stickers myself.
00:05:57 Mary Frances Phillips: So.
00:05:57 Kate Carpenter: I love to hear that. Where in the research process do you start writing?
00:06:02 Mary Frances Phillips: I usually start writing when I have enough primary source materials, and I've done enough reading of secondary documents, and I have a clear argument and I can support that claim. And so I begin thinking about thinking about the drafting process of a book proposal or journal article and how I'm going to organize that. But I'm starting a new project. So I'm going, you know, from just coming off of a book and starting a new project, I'm going all the way back to the beginning and really familiarizing myself first with the secondary literature that's that's out there. So, you know, right now it's just getting familiar with what scholars are saying, understanding where the gaps are, the argument I'm trying to make. So it takes a while for this project. It's going to take a while for me to begin to really do the kind of serious drafting for this whole new project that I'm doing. But but usually it's, you know, okay, I got my argument down, my primary sources, I can see what I can visualize it, and I start putting it on the page.
00:07:15 Kate Carpenter: You mentioned that for you, the work of writing really takes place in revision. How does that shake out? What does what does revision actually look like for you?
00:07:24 Mary Frances Phillips: It is rereading it several times. It's making sure that my the fabric of the piece is there or my argument. So everything should go back to the central argument. So for me, it's going through each paragraph and making sure that whatever I'm saying comes back to support my claim. There's a reason for everything you're saying. So that's part of the revision as well for me and looking at my introduction, looking at my conclusion, it's like a, you know, almost like a puzzle and making sure the fabric is supported to reassert the claim that I'm, that I'm making. A part for me that's really important in the revision process is a book manuscript workshop. It was really helpful for my first book, Black Panther Woman. And so because it was so fruitful to the work, it has now become part of my revision process. It is something I turned to when I'm at the end, close to the end. And you know, I come with a clear, with clear goals of what I am trying to get out of the book manuscript workshop with those questions and queries and things that I'm, you know, I'm still struggling with, or big picture I was, um, a particular section. So I have clear goals as I go into the book manuscript workshop. But that's something that's very important for me to the revision process as well.
00:09:06 Kate Carpenter: For listeners who might not know, could you sort of describe what happens at a book manuscript workshop?
00:09:11 Mary Frances Phillips: Yeah. So it can look different. Um, for many different people. You can design it as you wish. A lot of times it is about bringing scholars in your field together that you trust that you know are really supportive of your work and sending them the full manuscript or pieces of the manuscript and offering feedback. For me, that's I prefer that to be in community where we're all coming together if it's online or in person, and we're having a conversation about the work and dialoguing about the work, it really helps you understand how others are understanding your work, what was striking about the work. You know, whether there are gaps in the work or what have you. How are other people reading your work? Is the work doing exactly what you intended for it to do? As well as it's always feels good to talk about your work. And you usually have moderator um, you might have a note taker, a set of questions you can, you know, devise. It however, works best for you. And so it is to help advance the book.
00:10:24 Kate Carpenter: I want to ask a little bit more about how Black Panther Woman came together. It's really rooted in oral histories, which clearly comes through in the book, but that's especially true when it comes to Ericka Huggins, the book's subject. And you talk in the introduction about how you came to have a really distinct relationship with her as a result of those interviews and your ongoing interactions, as you were researching and writing. How did that relationship shape the way you approached writing?
00:10:53 Mary Frances Phillips: Well, because of the gaps in the archives, I knew I needed to conduct oral histories with Erika, or things about her life that only she knew, and corroborate that with my primary materials. We spoke over the span of ten years. Really longer than that, if we count my first interview with her when I was a PhD student a long, long time ago. In the book, I describe my relationship as one of complex camaraderie. It's been high moments. It's been low moments. It's been ups and downs. It's complex. Best way I can describe it, and I talk more about it in the book. I encourage people to to to pick up the book, but it was important for me to speak to her because for many reasons, for one of the reasons is I wanted to get a sense of her feelings, her emotions, that kind of in a world of emotion that is not in the archives, that's not on a page. And many of the oral histories out there about her. And so I wanted this book to be a very different type of book that does the work of intimate histories, that really does the work of telling a human story. You know, that was important to the work, and Ericka was comfortable with that as well. And so there was some, you know, some conversation about that and talking to her about the way in which I wanted to write the book and her sharing with me, she was very clear in her hopes that a person writing a book on her, you know, other Panthers would be able to see themselves in the story and that it could speak to an audience outside of the academy. And we both shared that same sentiment. So that that worked well.
00:12:53 Kate Carpenter: I think all historians owe something to the people that they write about. But a lot of them don't have to face those people. They they don't. They're not going to have a chance to respond. How did it affect you while you were working on the book, knowing that Ericka would read it, knowing that she would respond to it?
00:13:11 Mary Frances Phillips: That's a really good question. You know, I have been talking with Ericka for so long. I started to get a sense from my experience, my perspective on things she might even say when she read, when she read parts of the book or, you know, she read all of the book initially, but the introduction. And then when the book came out, she read the introduction. And so there's some parts of the book that was taken out, some stories per her request, which I respected. And we had some conversation around that. And then there was other parts of the book where I was like, Ericka, this has to stay. And this is why I'm having a conversation around that. It's challenging. It wasn't an easy book to write. It's probably one of the most difficult things I've ever done in my life, you know, and navigating, you know, there's a whole line of navigation, delicate balance to writing a book on on someone very invested in the book. But I think the book is better for it. I think the book is much more intimate and thorough and comprehensive, and it really holds tight to a care of ethics, to Erica, and with Erica still being with us. And that's just how I write, period. Um, holding ethics close and as a priority. And so it was important that we both were comfortable with what was in the book and what was coming out. And understanding my role as a professional historian, I think was was important to while also balancing her request. And again, I talk about this a lot in the book, but I think we I think we did well with the book. I'm very proud of the book.
00:15:20 Kate Carpenter: To talk a little more about the book that emerged as a result of that relationship, I asked Mary to read an excerpt from her book. Here's Doctor Mary Frances Phillips reading from chapter two of Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins.
00:15:37 Mary Frances Phillips: In the autumn of 1962, Ericka entered McKinley Tech, a predominantly black high school in Washington, D.C. Her unwavering sense of self was shaped by her mother's stories of transcending race and class, instilling in her a deep rooted passion for activism. It was more than a mere interest; it was a calling, a destiny she couldn't escape. In August nineteen sixty three, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was announced on television. Ericka felt called to attend. She was only fifteen years old, not the legal age of official adulthood. Like many other young people, she knew she must witness the event with her own eyes and was determined to get there no matter what her parents might say. "I'm going!" she declared. "You know, that's no place for a fifteen year old." Her mother promptly responded. "Why not?" "The police will be there. It's unsafe for you," Mrs. Jenkins explained. "But, mama, you don't want me to go. You're afraid for me. But you taught me to love black people." "I know I did." "And you taught me to stand up for black people," Ericka insisted. "I know I did, but I didn't mean you. I didn't mean I want you to do it." "Well, I am. And I'm going. You can punish me when I return," Ericka insisted, even as her mother tried to dissuade her. Mrs. Jenkins instructed her to tell her father, who was sober at the time, what she was about to do. He was shocked and quiet. Ericka remained resolute as she sensed the impending, life altering impact of the March on Washington. Amidst the racial unrest of the 1960s, participating in the March on Washington pose great danger, including the ominous presence and deployment of law enforcement and the fear of potential uprisings. The haunting memories of children peacefully protesting in the spring of nineteen sixty three, in Birmingham, Alabama, assaulted by water hoses and attacked by police, canines were indelibly etched in her mind. These harrowing images, captured on film and broadcast all over the world, sent a chilling message that no one, not even youth, was safe from the perils of mob and police violence. What if Ericka got arrested? What if she got hurt? Ericka's parents worried about their daughter's personal safety, but ultimately they did not stop her. Ericka, in turn, stepped into her independence and asserted her identity as an individual able to make her own decisions. Deep within, she knew that the large crowd of people would act as a shield against any potential harm. Ericka traveled roughly forty five minutes alone on the bus, which included a transfer from her home on Fifty-fifth and East Capitol Street southeast to the March on Washington in Northwest DC. Years later, she recalled, "It was my singular destiny at that point in time in my life. I was supposed to do it alone." Ericka's memory reveals her determined intent to ward off any outside influence, to be true to herself. Looking back, she saw that this was a crucial turning point in her life.
00:19:48 Kate Carpenter: I wanted to talk about this passage because in several places in the book, you offer us sort of a miniature scene of direct dialogue, like at the beginning of the chapter where Ericka is talking with her mother about going to the March on Washington. How did those scenes come together?
00:20:04 Mary Frances Phillips: Those scenes came together through oral history, archival material and secondary sources weaved together. So that particular passage came from Ericka's oral history and recalling her memories attending the March on Washington against her mother's wishes. And secondary sources on the March on Washington. So in my conversation with Ericka, I was interested in her parents' response, her reflections, and what she was thinking at the time. And she was determined to go despite her parents telling her not to. So I really was trying to go back in the mind of that little girl. It really wanted her to to really in her storytelling, paint that moment for me. And so that's where that is coming from. You know, those wealth of those those stories she shared with me.
00:21:04 Kate Carpenter: I know that for both you and Ericka, writing this book in a way that was accessible to people not just in the academy but beyond it was really important. How did you keep that goal front of mind as you were drafting and revising?
00:21:18 Mary Frances Phillips: So that's a goal that I hold strong with all my writing. I want my writing to be able to speak to folks beyond the academy, not just people within the academy. I want my work to be able to speak to those in a community, to speak to students learning, to speak to activists. And so the work being accessible is vital. It's critical for me. And so it was a goal of mine to also write the book with vivid narration in a very intimate way. I wanted to speak to a broad range of people, and so I felt like doing that. Writing the book in that way was the best way to do that. And Ericka and I shared a sentiment, shared the same sentiment in that particular writing style, using that particular writing style. And the book is about Ericka's spiritual journey as a case study for understanding radical women's wellness practices, Black Panther activism within the carceral system, political prisoners, and prison resistance. And so writing the book intimately is such a way that invokes feelings and connections to the mind, the body and the soul with all the senses in mind. Also, how I'm writing was absolutely necessary to the work of the book and the argument of the book and what I'm trying to do, and the story that I'm trying to tell. I felt like because of the thread of the book, what the book is about, but also the limitations that I was up against, like I talked about, it was hard to find all the intimate things that I was looking for about Ericka's life in the archives. It was important for me to, to and necessary for me to tell the story the way that I'm telling the story. Um, accessibility is so important. I mean, for me, that's part of why I do the work that I do.
00:23:39 Kate Carpenter: One thing that makes this book so interesting, but that I have to imagine also made it hard to write, right, is that you are making these sort of nimble shifts all the time between this historical narration that makes me, as a reader, really feel like I'm there. I'm in the past and in those moments, but you're also really incorporating the reflection on those same moments. That's coming from the memories that Ericka and other other subjects that you talked to are sharing with you. And that's part of what you're doing in the book, right? Is is showing us these things kind of side by side. Was it challenging to write that way? How did you figure out how to balance those?
00:24:19 Mary Frances Phillips: That was something that as I continued writing, I got better at through the process of writing a book. So voice was really, really important. Understanding my voice, making a distinction between my voice and Ericka's voice, right, in the book. Other people's voices knowing when for other folks enter, when I enter, having control over that and that balancing act was important. So coming in and out of the story to analyze and make clear how the stories connect to the thread of the book was important.
00:25:01 Kate Carpenter: Was that something that you really had to work on in revision, or did it come through in the drafting?
00:25:06 Mary Frances Phillips: No, revision. Revision. Revision. In the drafting, I was still figuring it out, and I think that's because of my proximity to Ericka, being so close. In the revision process it became clear. Right. And so that's in that revision process, my voice got more pronounced and became, this is my voice. This is Ericka's storytelling. You know, this is, you know, her being quoted or talking about a particular aspect of her life. This is my analysis, is, right, this is a moment where, you know, like there's one part of the book where I recall when Ericka was incarcerated and she has an accounting of one story and then another prisoner that I talk about, Frances Carter, has another account. And so being very clear, this is Ericka's perspective. This is Frances Carter's perspective. And this is my analysis, right, of both of their perspectives and letting the reader make their own decision because they have contrasting stories or different interpretations of a particular moment that I talk about when they were incarcerated. So I let the reader make that decision. But they have both, and then they have my analysis of it as well. Um, so the revision part was was key. That's kind of where you figure out what you're really doing, you know, and it becomes it becomes, it becomes clear. So voice, voice was a big challenge with writing this book that became prominent. And I got I got in control of it during the revision process.
00:27:00 Kate Carpenter: Now, you mentioned the book manuscript workshop and how helpful that was for you. Do you also have a writing community that you're a part of, people you look to for feedback on your work?
00:27:10 Mary Frances Phillips: Yeah, yeah. So I am part of a writing community of Black women historians. We write together. We if we need feedback or if you need to talk through something or really just struggling, you know, just doing our work as as Black women academics, Black women historians, we can turn to each other for support. So it's not just a writing group, it's also a support group. It's a it's a group that I very much trust. And it's a group where I talk about that play, right, where we, you know, integrate some fun while also doing our work as well. So it's it's a space that is very important to me. And that I hold I hold close to me. But yes, I do write in a group with other Black women historians.
00:28:04 Kate Carpenter: I have to imagine that that element of play is especially important when you're working on something that's so difficult, you know, not not just craft wise, but difficult emotionally to, to write and to work on.
00:28:17 Mary Frances Phillips: Yeah, yeah. You know, sometimes for some people, we become adults. We lose that sense of play that we had as children, you know, where anything is possible and you're thinking without boundaries and you have such a vivid imagination. And so for me, that becomes important to remain in touch with that as I get older and not lose that because it helps me become a stronger writer. So not just it comes out in my accountability system with all of my, um, stickers. You know, as I finish the chapter, what have you. I'll give myself a sticker. What have you. But I also have a doll collection as well. And so all of this is energy for me to do the kind of creative work that I do.
00:29:16 Kate Carpenter: What's the most influential writing advice you've ever gotten?
00:29:19 Mary Frances Phillips: Show. Don't tell. Right? It's really important doing the kind of creative writing that I do. You can't tell everything. So share exactly what the readers need to know to keep the story moving forward. And then write with all the senses in mind. Those have been the the three pieces of advice that has been life altering in my writing.
00:29:49 Kate Carpenter: Are there other historians or writers, or maybe even other forms of media that you look to for inspiration?
00:29:56 Mary Frances Phillips: Yeah, so I'm a big fan of your podcast. I love hearing about historians and the process of writing and what that looks like. Um, it's so generative. I'm also very inspired by Saidiya Hartman's works. She writes so vividly. I also read all types of novels, I'm into Kennedy Ryan's books now, it's what I'm reading right now. But reading novels helps me do the type of work, um, or the type of writing I'm doing.
00:30:28 Kate Carpenter: What do you find you take from novels as a historian?
00:30:31 Mary Frances Phillips: How to think about characters. What moves a character? What drives the character? What keeps the character interesting? How to actually write character is really helpful. How to build a character is also key. And when I say that, I'm thinking about fully developed characters versus characters that are not fully developed. And so understanding how to write a fully developed character and keep the story moving as connected to the thread is what is what I get from from reading novels. And all kinds of novelists do it in very different ways, but it's really helpful thinking about character development.
00:31:18 Kate Carpenter: Now, you mentioned a little earlier in our conversation that you are starting on another project, that you're familiarizing yourself with the literature. Before I ask you what that project is, I'm curious what it's like to go from a project that started as a dissertation, and then you really deepened and built on for a book, to starting a book totally from the beginning.
00:31:41 Mary Frances Phillips: I feel like what I'm about to embark on again is a little similar to what I did for the book, because Black Panther Woman is so different from my dissertation. A lot of the it's all new research, all new primary materials. I delve into a life, a part of Ericka's life, I mean, in Black Panther Woman that I didn't look at at all in my dissertation. And so I had to to kind of learn her life in prison and what was going on. And so in a lot of ways, it felt like a whole new project, even though it was on a, you know, same person. With this new project, I feel like I am starting that process again all the way to the beginning. And I'm so in the early stages of this new project, I'm, I mean, I'm at the literature review and kind of seeing what scholars have said about the topic, what the gaps are and trying to to to figure out, you know, what I want to contribute to move the scholarship forward. And so it's different. I did have context, you know, for the book that that in, in, in a lot of ways because it, you know, some of it was um, very little of it, but the topic at least was from the dissertation, whereas in this regard it's just all new. So there is some differences. But you know, as a trained historian, we, we, we know what to do. It's just kind of going through going through the process again but enjoying the process. You know, this is my second book, so I don't have the same pressures. And I think enjoying the actual process that goes into the making of a book, you can't get that time back and to enjoy it, it's is just as important as when a book is finally done. So the difference is that in this moment, I'm actually enjoying it in a much deeper way.
00:33:49 Kate Carpenter: I like to hear that; enjoyment is good. Are you up for sharing a little bit about what you're working on?
00:33:55 Mary Frances Phillips: I'll say this: it's a study that looks at black women boxers. So, you know, very different direction from the previous work. And so that's, that's that's what I could share right now. We'll kind of see where it goes and all of that. But I've always had an interest in in sports history. It comes from my stepfather, he introduced me to boxing when I was a teenager. We used to watch every boxing fight. This is a part, for people who know me well, a lot of them don't know this part about me. And you know, it's a way to give honor to my stepfather and the men in my life and my grandfather and what have you. He wasn't into boxing, but he was certainly into football. But I've always enjoyed sports. But boxing has always been my favorite sport because of my stepfather. So, you know, it's the it's the area that I'm excited to explore for myself.
00:34:53 Kate Carpenter: Fantastic, I love that. I can't wait to see where it goes and to get to read it eventually. But I hope you enjoy all the steps along the way. Doctor Mary Frances Phillips, thank you so much for joining me for Drafting the Past and for talking about your writing process.
00:35:08 Mary Frances Phillips: Thank you so much. It's been a joy to speak with you.
00:35:11 Kate Carpenter: Thanks for joining us for this episode of Drafting the Past. To find links to Mary's book and everything else we talked about in this episode, along with a complete transcript, check out the show notes at draftingthepast.com. While you're there, consider signing up for the newsletter to stay up on episodes, posts on the Drafting the Past blog and more. In the meantime, remember that friends don't let friends write boring history.
