Kirk Watson: “I rise to honor and memorialize a great American, Juanita R. Phillips, a retired educator in the St. Louis public…”

“I rise to honor and memorialize a great American, Juanita R. Phillips, a retired educator in the St. Louis public schools. She died of natural causes on Thursday, July 1, 2004, 3 months shy of celebrating her 100th birthday. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, on September 26, 1904, 3 months, as I said, before her centennial. She attended the Clinton Iowa public schools and graduated in 1927 from the University of California at Los Angeles and earned a master's degree in English from Ohio State University. After graduation, she taught English at various historically black institutions such as Florida A&M College in Tallahassee, Florida, and Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia, before moving to St. Louis. In 1943 she moved with her husband, Dr. A.C. Phillips, an educator who served as principal of Washington Technical, Vashon, and Central High Schools, and after retirement as a former president of New Age Federal Savings and Loan in North St. Louis. Mrs. Phillips continued her love for teaching English at Soldan High School, from which she retired in 1972, and subsequently served as a tutorial volunteer. During her lifetime, Mrs. Phillips remained engaged in various local and national organizations until she became well advanced in age. As a founding member and first president of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority's Alpha Gamma Chapter, my chapter, at UCLA in the 1920s, she also dated Ralph Bunche, a classmate while in college.”