Lanier W. Phillips (March 14, 1923 – March 11, 2012) was a survivor of the wreck of the USS ''Truxtun'' off the coast of

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

, a retired oceanographer and a recipient of the U.S. Navy Memorial's Lone Sailor award for his distinguished post Navy civilian career. Phillips was an

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

who was raised by sharecroppers in

Lithonia, Georgia Lithonia (, ; AAVE: ) is a city in eastern DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The city's population was 2,662 at the 2020 census. Lithonia is in the Atlanta metropolitan area. "Lithonia" means "city/town of stone". Lithonia is in the heart ...

and who became the US Navy's first black

sonar Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigation, navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect o ...

technician.Michael E. Ruane ''Washington Post'' 16 September 2010
Retrieved 17 September 2010 Phillips died on March 12, 2012, at the Armed Forces Retirement Home in

Gulfport, Mississippi Gulfport is the second-largest city in Mississippi after the state capital, Jackson. Along with Biloxi, Gulfport is the co-county seat of Harrison County and the larger of the two principal cities of the Gulfport-Biloxi, Mississippi Metropolitan ...

History

Phillips grew up in the South where the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...

was active and influential. Following in his parents footsteps, Phillips aspired to be a sharecropper. In 1941, when America entered WWII, Philips joined the

Navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...

Sinking of the ''Truxtun''

On February 18, 1942, Phillips was aboard the while it was battered by a severe winter storm. Eventually the ''Truxtun'' and the supply ship the were forced onto the rocks of the southeast coast of Newfoundland. Hundreds of men from both ships died, but Phillips was among the survivors.Dead Reckoning: The Pollux-Truxton Disaster
/ref> Initially afraid to leave his doomed ship because he thought he was off the coast of

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

where he had been told blacks were forbidden to go ashore,blog.usni.org
Retrieved 17 September 2010 Phillips boarded a lifeboat which capsized as it reached land. Exhausted and covered in oil that had leaked from the sinking ships, Phillips collapsed on the beach. Gently prodded to his feet by a local resident who told him he'd freeze to death if he didn't get up, Phillips was confronted by an experience that was totally new to him: "I had never heard a kind word from a white man in my life." Phillips was taken to a place where the local women were washing oil from the survivors, and when they realized they could not scrub his skin white he was afraid their kind treatment would end. Instead a local woman, Violet Pike, insisted that he come home to her house where she nursed him with soup and put him to bed with blankets and rocks she'd warmed on her wood stove. Profoundly touched and forever changed by the kindness of the residents of St. Lawrence, Newfoundland, Phillips went on to become the Navy's first black sonar technician and vowed to do everything in his power to repay the kindness he had experienced, eventually donating enough money to St. Lawrence for them to build a children's playground. After giving speeches at schools across the U.S., Phillips was awarded an honorary degree from

Memorial University of Newfoundland Memorial University of Newfoundland, also known as Memorial University or MUN (), is a public university in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, based in St. John's, with satellite campuses in Corner Brook, elsewhere in Newfoundland and ...

in 2008 for his efforts to end discrimination. In 2011, Phillips was given honorary membership into the

Order of Newfoundland and Labrador The Order of Newfoundland and Labrador (french: Ordre du Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador) is a civilian honour for merit in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Instituted in 2001, when Lieutenant Governor Arthur Maxwell House granted Roya ...

for his work in civil rights in the U.S. In 2012 ''Oil and Water'', a play about Lanier's experience in St. Lawrence after the shipwreck and the influence it had on him, was produced by Newfoundland's Artistic Fraud theater company. In 2016, a picture book on Phillips' life, ''A Change of Heart'', (, Nimbus Publishing) was released, written by Alice Walsh and Erin Bennett Banks.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Phillips, Lanier W. People from Lithonia, Georgia Technicians United States Navy sailors 1923 births 2012 deaths United States Navy personnel of World War II Activists for African-American civil rights African-American activists Military personnel from Georgia (U.S. state) Activists from Georgia (U.S. state) Members of the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador 21st-century African-American people African-American United States Navy personnel African Americans in World War II