Philips Community Oral History Project: Documenting and Amplifying a Community

Phillips Community Oral History Project began in July 2025 with the mission of documenting, amplifying, and empowering the community’s multicultural and multi-generational voices to tell their own stories on their own terms.   

“The four Neighborhoods of the Phillips Community have a rich history of advocating for environmental, social, and cultural justice,” shares J Randolph, executive director of the Phillips West Neighborhood Organization. “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.”

Randolph explains the purpose of the project and how the organization partnered with the college’s Liberal Arts Engagement Hub.

Tell us about your project. 

For over 75 years, the Phillips Community (made up of Phillips West, Midtown Phillips,East Phillips, and Ventura Village) in South Minneapolis has been organizing on behalf of its residents, making it one of the oldest organized communities in the city.

The Philips Oral History Project was born out of the realization that these community histories have rarely been told by the people who lived them. We believe it's critical to honor Phillips’ remarkable history, present, and future by uplifting the lived experiences of the multigenerational and multicultural communities who live, work, play, study, worship, and/or otherwise call any of the Phillips Neighborhoods home, this time on their own terms and in their own voices.

The recipient of a Hub residency, the project has been a multi-month-long endeavor to interview, photograph, and write about Phillips’ residents' stories with the ultimate goal of amplifying a sense of belonging and connection to one another and our cultural communities. 

Our interviews, which began in Fall 2025, take place in interviewees’ homes or in accessible community spaces where residents feel comfortable, such as The Hub. Throughout that time, we are editing audio content and producing a webpage on the United Phillips site that walks viewers through the content and history. Throughout 2026, we are continuing to display and conduct outreach around the finalized content for larger viewership. We have come to realize that this project is much larger than we initially anticipated and are hoping to continue on after our residency with The Hub is complete.

The Hub residency’s resources have allowed us to connect with CLA faculty and students who can assist us with subject and methodology expertise, project assistance such as transcription and interviewing, and networking opportunities to better broadcast the project and its importance. The residency funds have opened the door for our neighborhood organizations to provide honorariums to Phillips' residents, recognizing both that their stories are valuable and that sharing them is often a form of labor.

How does your project align with public engagement?

The Phillips Community Oral History Project informs contemporary debates by connecting the historical to the present. From the founding of the American Indian Movement in 1968 to the recent win by the East Phillips Urban Farm, there are stories waiting to be told here that can provide a roadmap for how to resist the colonial, individualistic structures that threaten our planet and Black, brown, Indigenous, queer, trans, immigrant, and disabled lives. Documenting those lessons now before our elders can no longer share them is crucial for current and future generations of activists and scholars.

The root of this project is amplifying community voices and histories that have been historically ignored. We’ve aimed to rectify that injustice by handing the mic to the people who have built and cared for Phillips over the years. By documenting and amplifying those voices, we ensure the longevity of their legacies and begin to reshape the narrative of who and what Phillips is internally and in the public eye.

There is no denying that the Philips community has experienced hardships in the form of environmental racism, economic inequality, redlining, and police profiling to name a few. Rather than solely focusing on the negative or the challenges faced by folks living in Phillips, sharing such stories also exemplifies the resiliency of the people of Phillips, shifting the narrative from deficit-based to asset-based. Those stories give access to tangible examples of the good, the bad, and the mundane that will not only teach future/current generations but also connect their experiences to a long history, making them feel seen. We, and our participants, know these stories have the ability to be used and create new stories, art, and research out of them, ultimately expanding the body of knowledge and artistic sources.

Our communities are under attack and are simultaneously in a period of transition. Whether it be legislation threatening to strip Immigrants and Indigenous people of their citizenship, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers separating families, the erasure of queer and trans people from history, or our elders reaching the end of their time with us, the Phillips Community is dedicated to preserving the many cultures that thrive in the four Neighborhoods. 

How does your residency include equity and reciprocity through community partnerships?

Per The Hub’s mission, the Phillips Community Oral History Project has established a partnership between the three neighborhood organizations, The Alley Communications, and the University by recognizing the knowledge and wisdom in historically excluded communities through documenting their stories. 

The final products created by the project will become resources for both the community and University to expand the realm of knowledge production and diversify the proverbial archive. This collaborative effort  benefits our project by connecting us to people–including faculty, staff, and students–from across the University network. Two tangible examples of the possibilities are working with a professor and their students to 1) learn about community organizing from our project staff or participants and/or 2) having the faculty and students assist with transcription, editing, and interviewing. Connecting the community to the University in this way develops a mutually beneficial relationship where both the community partners and the University are able to better reach their goals. Overall, this project is a collaborative effort between the University and us insofar as the project itself is shaped by both the people from the University and the community who want to participate. 

This story was edited by Avery Vrieze, an undergraduate student in CLA.