For over 75 years, The Phillips Community’s four Neighborhoods 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, Scandinavian, Jewish, Southeast Asian, Latinx, 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 these 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.

​

We’re conducting interviews in two forms: short interviews at pop up locations in neighborhood gathering spots and longer form interviews with individual residents. These interviews will eventually be shared here and will be excerpted in the alley newspaper. We are also sharing monthly updates about the project in the alley.

​

If you have a neighbor you think we should interview or have your own neighborhood story to tell please get in touch! You can email us at info@unitedphillips.org.

​

[October 2025 Update] So far, we have conducted 12 interviews with people who live in all four Phillips neighborhoods. We have also hosted three pop-up interviews at the Franklin Library, two at Ebenezer Tower apartments, and one at Phillips Clean Sweep. 

 

The Phillips Community Oral History project is a joint effort by Alley Communications and the United Phillips Coalition. This project is funded by the University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts Engagement Hub and the City of Minneapolis Public Engagement Fund.