Ivory Phillips was born in Rosedale Mississippi in the Summer of ‘42. He attended and graduated from what was then Rosedale Negro High School in 1960. From there he went to Jackson State University on an academic scholarship and graduated in 1964 with a B.S. in Social Science Education. After years of teaching and graduate studies, Phillips returned to JSU in the Fall of 1971, got married, raised a family and spent the next 44 years teaching social sciences there. In the meantime, he served as Chairman of the Department of Social Science Education, Faculty Senate President, and Dean of the College of Education and Human Development. While doing so, he tried to make it a practice to keep his teaching lively and truthful with true-to-life examples and personally developed material.
In addition to the work on the campus, he became involved in numerous community activities. Among them was editorial writing for the Jackson Advocate, consulting on the Ayers higher education discrimination case, coaching youth soccer teams, two of which won state championships, working on political campaigns, and supporting Black liberation struggles, including the Republic of New Africa, the All-Peoples Revolutionary Party, Mississippi Alliance of State Employees, and the development of a Black Community Political Convention.
In many ways these activities converge as can be detected from his writings in the Jackson Advocate. Over the years those writings covered history, politics, economics, education, sports, religion, culture and sociology, all from the perspective of Black people in Jackson, Mississippi, America, and the world.
Obviously, these have kept him beyond busy. Yet, in his spare time, he loved listening to Black music, playing with his grandchildren, making others laugh, and being helpful to others.
