Alberta Phillips

Treasurer, Austin

Board Member Since 2015

Alberta Phillips is an Austin based writer and award-winning journalist, who began her career at an African American publication, The Call and Times, in Cincinnati, Ohio. She also worked at the Westbury Times in Long Island, N.Y., and freelanced for some other black publications. The majority of her career has been with the Austin city daily, The Austin American-Statesman, where she rose from a neighbor reporter to Editorial Writer and Columnist, taking the pulse of Austin’s Communities of Color for more than 30 years. While at the Statesman, she covered a variety of beats, including public schools, city hall, utilities, race relations, environmental issues and city, state and national politics. She was the first African American woman to serve in the Texas Capitol Press Corps, covering Gov. Ann Richards and Gov. George W. Bush.

She has won numerous awards for journalism excellence and was nominated twice for a Pulitzer Prize. Ms. Phillips left the American-Statesman in 2018 to pursue other interests, including a book project. Recently, the board of KAZI radio, a community radio station with an African American focus, approved her proposal to launch a new, news magazine podcast, “ATX Now in Color,” which will focus on local and state issues impacting the Black Community. The podcast is scheduled to launch in July 2020.

She currently serves as Treasurer on the BikeTexas Board of Directors, as Commissioner on the City of Austin’s Joint Sustainability Committee, and Chairwoman of the ECHO Governing Board (the umbrella organization for Austin’s advocacy network for unsheltered/homeless people).