This week we’re hearing from Zion Phillips in Anchorage. Phillips is a UAA freshmen and president of UAA’s Black Student Union.
PHILLIPS: I was born in Kansas – Wichita. Then I moved to Dover, DE, then to Lajes Field, Azores – it’s one of nine islands owned by Portugal – and then I moved to Texas and then I’m here. I think I was able to see basically every part of the world. I’m the furthest west of America and I was the furthest east in America – and Midwest and South. I figured I was able to see different points of America, so I think I have a pretty diverse outlook.
When I moved here, I was asking my dad, “Hey. You were in the Black Student Union in college. What was that like?” And he said, “I liked it. I was in there for a few years.” So I was like, “Hey. I wanna try that.”
There’s a lot of bigger campuses with a larger black population. They usually have an established Black Student Union. It’s a huge organization where they do a lot of community service, education programs for black folks – to provide a safer space and to make black folks more comfortable being where they’re at on campus, ’cause they’re usually the minority here.
I was asking folks around, “Do you know where the Black Student Union is? Is there one here?” And they’re like, “No. We don’t have one.” And I asked a few other people they said there was one a few years back but it hasn’t been active in a few years. I talked to one of my advisers. She asked me, “Hey. Do you just wanna bring it back up again?” So there were four of us in a room, they brought us here, and we just went down the list, and everybody was asked what they wanted to choose as their role, and I said, “Hey. I’ll be president.” And that’s how that happened. (laughs)
Black History Month is like a reminder for us that we’re here because the people in the past fought for us. So we’re here to celebrate them. There are designated days like Presidents’ Day and Veterans’ Day. But we, I guess, designated ourselves to have a whole month. And I think this just allows us to come together as a community and figure things out.
Wesley Early covers Anchorage life and city politics for Alaska Public Media. Reach him at wearly@alaskapublic.org and follow him on X at @wesley_early. Read more about Wesley here.
