Remembering Lanier Phillips
A near death experience influenced a DeKalb County man to spend his life fighting for racial equality. Lanier Phillips died recently just two days before his 89th birthday. Family and friends remembered his struggle and work at his funeral this weekend.
A trumpet player blowing the gospel song “Just a Closer Walk With Thee” leads a line of Phillips’ family and friends walking into Union Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia. Phillips was born in Lithonia and was baptized in this church was he was 9 years old. Black children like Phillips also went to school in church because government schools were segregated at that time. Phillips went the Yellow River church school until the Ku Klux Klan torched the building. Ellis Ingram is Phillips’ cousin.
“When that school was burned down, his loving mother sent him to live with family in Chattanooga, Tennessee where he could further his education,” said Ingram.
While in Tennessee, Phillips joined the Navy in 1941. One year later during World War Two, Phillips was onboard the destroyer ship called the USS Truxtun. A strong, winter storm caused the ship to crash off Canada’s East Coast. Terry Phillips says that’s when his father’s faith kicked in.
“When he learned that the ship was sinking and the announcement went out, he and the other two African-Americans got on their knees and prayed,” said Terry Phillips. “But, after he prayed he got up and went and got on the boat. The last life boat to leave that ship.”
The USS Truxtun had 156 people onboard. Only 46 of them survived. Lanier Phillips was one of them. That’s because a group of people from the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador did what they could to save as many crew members as they could. Lieutenant Jack Barrett is the Chaplain of the Canadian Navy.
“The pivotal point in Lanier’s life came when he was rescued from an early death by the humble, caring people of Newfoundland and Labrador who simply treated him as an equal,” said Barrett.
The rescuers were white. Some of them had never seen a black person before. In fact, one woman mistook Phillips’ dark skin as part of the oil he was covered in from the crash. After realizing his race, the rescues didn’t mistreat Phillips. That experienced forever changed Phillips according to Wayne Roswell. He’s the Mayor of the Newfoundland town of St. Lawrence.
“His brief encounter with humanity and racial equality helped him find his own path,” said Roswell.
Phillips wanted white people in the United States to treat blacks the same way the white people in Canada treated him. He marched for civil rights outside the military and within its ranks becoming the Navy first black sonar technician. Paulette Brock, a black woman, is the current Command Master Chief of the USS Truxtun.
“In the Navy, he paved the way for African-Americans for sonar tech,” said Brock. “He was the first and he made an opening for all to achieve their goals.”
Lanier Phillips, according to his son Terry, pushed for civil rights and for his own education. It’s something they all remembered as they left the church to the sounds of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
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