Former Student Association (SA) President Phillip Warfield was instrumental in raising awareness about racial and cultural topics on Southern’s campus. Since the majority of students stay at any given university for only four to five years, collective student memory is very short. Looking to the past can help us better understand where we’ve come from and the issues we currently face. Warfield is currently pursuing his PhD at Howard University in United States history, which he describes as “being professionally trained to remember the stuff you forget and to remind you why it’s important.” The following conversation has been edited slightly for length and clarity.
Can you tell me a little about yourself and your connection to Southern?
My name is Phillip Warfield, and I was the 2017-2018 [SA] president. During my time as president, I dealt with one of the campus’ worst public racist issues. As president, I chose to highlight, celebrate and think critically about race and culture on campus.
As I responded to our horrible situation in February 2018 (when an anonymous banned student disparaged Black and African American students celebrating their culture online), I continued to implement new ideas that I hoped would benefit our campus for years to come.
I was the senior class president in 2019. And during my five years, I also served in ministries and missions. I was an RA, a student dean and an actor in the great Studio 4109: LIVE! for two to three years; … I was most known for playing characters like Barack Obama and Steve Urkel from “Family Matters.”…Back then, I was an idealist, and I still kind of am in some ways. This may be random, but my favorite person to study isn’t Dr. King Jr. or Malcolm X necessarily — it’s Michael Jackson of all people. When I watched his work, it inspired me to think about the ways I could think about and celebrate race and culture at a scholarly level and engage with the public.
Would you talk about a couple of the traditions and projects you initiated at Southern and what you hoped would come about as a result?
Yes, absolutely. I guess I should have mentioned earlier, this foreshadowed my history PhD here at Howard University. … Some of the projects that I did are some that are hanging up right now. We’ve got those cultural banners for the three main cultural groups on campus. Whether it’s Black History Month, Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month or even Hispanic Heritage Month, I wanted a physical reminder for the campus body and the community to know that we care about these students’ cultures.
Also, I created what I called a multicultural performance night, ‘This is Us.’ I really wanted it as a one-night only event to showcase the amazing possibilities on campus when we take a chance to lean into difficult conversations concerning race and culture. That night, we celebrated through art, food, drama and popular culture. That was a culmination of all the hard work we did that year, hoping that maybe this could be one of many examples of the ways that we could address each specific culture’s needs and prompt unity and difficult discussions.
… Earlier that year, I prompted the then-president David Smith to apologize for the 126 years of racist acts. Whether it was committed by this generation or not, I felt that an apology from administration was a pivotal move towards reconciliation. My idea was to film an apology video, which we did. The president also made a public promise to hire a vice-president for– — at the time we were calling it “diversity and inclusion.” that name has since changed a couple of times. But that was very important.
The last two things I’ll mention were the curated media lists for the library. For Black History Month, for example, let’s see Black history media lists that you’re not going to get if you never take a history course or any other related course, for example. Whether people wanted to watch or they wanted to listen or they wanted to read, I connected with the library to make that happen.
As SA president, you get two convocations when you get to bring in whatever guest you choose. That year, I brought in Dr. Terrence Roberts, a member of the Little Rock Nine. Dr. Roberts further encouraged campus discussions surrounding race and culture. My hope was that this would help prompt a curriculum of inclusion going forward; I wanted to address that need.
Acknowledging that things can shift a little in even a year or two, how would you describe Southern’s dynamic of racial/cultural relations? Have you seen progress in recent years, and where or how can it improve?
I graduated in 2019, which for some reason feels like a very long time ago, and I still keep tabs. I still talk to professors all the time. I still have students who are friends of mine, students who came in in my last year that I still connect with, and I’m there every few months.
I’m reluctant to talk about progress or change in my eight years being in close proximity with Southern. But I will say that I’m happy to see more conversations surrounding race and culture with tangible goals in mind. I don’t like having conversations just for having them. I always want to see results and changes. But, I think the biggest challenge for me — the thing that I’m still waiting for all these years later, along with many other alumni — is the fulfillment of the previous president’s promise: a full-time vice president of diversity and inclusion who would sit on the President’s Cabinet. I don’t want to discount the intensely hard work by the senior advisor for diversity at all, but there was a promise made, a promise that should be kept.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Something that I’m doing right now in my academic research is uncovering the social history of Southern. And there are some things that I have found that deserve critical analysis. … I learned about the origins of the first Black student on campus, and I’ve discovered why she was only able to attend for a single day. It’s an important story that doesn’t get a lot of love, and it’s way back in the past, farther than people might think… it’s a very important story.
I talked to a former SA president from the 1960s who dealt with repercussions for allying himself with the Civil Rights Movement — that was difficult. I’ve had conversations with the first Black professors at Southern about their times living in Collegedale and being some of the first Black people to move into that community.
Also, in my last two years, David Smith, the former president, and I had concurrently chased an informal end to the public showcase of the rebel Confederate flag by students on campus; for example, there used to be a pickup truck full of guys who would drive around with several of such flags flying and honking their horn loudly. And there were people that used to display the flag in their windows in the dormitory. So between him and me and other amazing staff members, we have seen those kinds of moments progressively less on campus.
As we reflect this month on Black history and remember stories both of sacrifice and success, let us also remember the students who came before us who shaped the culture we have inherited — we too will help form the culture we pass on, and how we shape that legacy is up to us.
