Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins

by Mary Frances Phillips, Charlene A. Carruthers (Foreword by)

Overview

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Drawing on never-before-seen archival sources, including prison records, unpublished letters, photographs, FBI records, and oral histories, Phillips foregrounds the paramount role of self-care and community care in Huggins’s political journey,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 prison, 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.

Transcending the traditional male-centric study of the Black Panther Party, Black Panther Woman offers an innovative analysis of Black political life at the intersections of gender, motherhood, and mass incarceration. This book serves as an invaluable toolkit for contemporary activists, underscoring the power of radical acts of care as well as vital strategies to thrive in the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781479802937
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	01/07/2025
Series:	Black Power , #6
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Mary Frances Phillips (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.

Charlene A. Carruthers (Foreword by)
Charlene A. Carruthers served as the founding national director of BYP100 (Black Youth Project 100) and is author of the bestselling book, Unapologetic: A Black, Queer and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements.

Editorial Reviews

"Deftly and ethically tackling the challenge of writing about a living historical figure who was involved in an impactful resistance movement, Phillips positions Huggins’s life as a lesson about how to sustain political struggle through spiritual development. Black Panther Woman enmeshes oral history, corroborating interviews, and critical documentary assessment to offer a truly textured analysis not only of one person’s life, but a demonstration of the virtue of patient rigor. Phillips sits still with Huggins in order to deepen the collective narrative of an already layered telling of the Black Panther Party. Her detailed review of Huggins’ life—before, during, and after imprisonment—identifies the joy that is possible through liberatory skill building in ways that resist the growth of dehumanizing institutions and carceral states. Historically, soulful political organizing has been essential and the way Phillips portrays Huggins’ life models ways to cultivate collective self-care in order to effectively deal with systemic oppression in our own time. With words and records that are at once reflective and introspective, Phillips creates a stunning mosaic of Huggins and her time."

Stephanie Y. Evans

"This groundbreaking volume is more than the first book-length treatment of Ericka Huggins. Phillips’ most poignant contribution is focused on Huggins as a spiritual seeker and leader."

Ms. Magazine

"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

"Both a memoir and an interpretive history of the Black Panther Party, Mary Frances Phillips gives us a tender rendering of Ericka Huggins's prison 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

2024-10-12
Activism grounded in love.

Phillips, a scholar of Africana studies, draws on oral history, extended conversations, and abundant archival sources—including FBI and prison files—to create an intimate portrait of Black Panther activist and spiritual leader Ericka Huggins (b. 1948). Huggins grew up under Jim Crow in Washington, D.C., where she encountered racism in the community and cruelty at home: her father was an abusive alcoholic whose rages traumatized his three children. A sensitive girl, Huggins experienced a political awakening in high school that led her to attend the March on Washington when she was 15, and her political awareness became honed at the HBCUs she attended. With John Huggins, whom she married, she became involved in the Black Panther Party. Within two years of her joining the BPP, she was a new mother and the widow of her murdered husband. Implicated in the murder of another BPP member, she was incarcerated from 1969 to 1971, when she was acquitted. For the five BPP women convicted with her, and for other inmates as well, Huggins’ practice of spiritual wellness was a crucial survival tactic. While in prison she founded the feminist Sister Love Collective, a diverse, multiracial queer space where yoga and meditation, writing, and self-care fostered a sense of empowerment. Among the group’s projects was a hair salon, which “harnessed the power of beauty, intimacy, self-confidence, care, and communal health as potent tools to undermine the oppressive forces of white supremacist state violence.” The members even altered their baggy prison uniform to reflect their own sense of style. In recounting Huggins’ life, Phillips enlarges the history of the Black Panthers by showing women’s experiences as integral to the group’s work and arguing convincingly that “spirituality, love, and sisterhood are inherently political.”

A revealing, well-researched biography.

Kirkus Reviews