Musicians of Distinction
Click: Phillip Brothers

The Phillips Family

H. Wesley Phillips (born about 1829) and his wife, Virginia Harris Phillips (born 19 April 1833, daughter of Joseph “FreeJoe” Harris and Fannie Harris), moved from Vernon, Indiana, to Michigan in September 1862 and bought a farm seven miles west of Kalamazoo in Oshtemo Township where they were among the community’s first African American residents. Together, the couple raised eleven children. (A twelfth child, a son, died soon after birth.)

Albert White

African American Builder Broke Racial Barriers

Albert White was an African American building contractor who lived and worked in Kalamazoo from the 1870s until his death in 1930. He and his men helped build a number of well known structures in Kalamazoo history.

Kalamazoo Public Library

The John Hay Center

Click: Family Video

Click: Western Michigan University

Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald (SearsRoebuck):

Rosenwald schools, any of roughly 5,000 rural schools for African American students that were built in the American South in the early 20th century. Rosenwald schools were the result of a collaboration between Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald, the president and part owner of Sears, Roebuck and Company. The schools boosted educational attainment and literacy rates in rural Black communities and helped educate the generation who would lead the civil rights movement. Many of the buildings are still intact, and several dozen are included on the National Register of Historic Places—though only a few still operate as schools.

My Great Grandparents Henry Anderson & Luella Harris Anderson sold them 3 acres of land; for the first black school to be established in Eads, Tennessee. Click: Joseph “FreeJoe” Harris

See: full "FreeJoe" Story