OVER THE COURSE of her two-decade career, American historian Kenvi Phillips has achieved a number of firsts. Her latest is tied to the first Black President of the United States. Phillips is the inaugural director of the Barack Obama Presidential Library. She is charged with leading all library activities across planning, administration, and programming.

Colleen Shogan, archivist of the United States, announced her appointment in May and she officially started June 16.

“I am excited Dr. Phillips is joining the National Archives as the Director of the Barack Obama Presidential Library. With her extensive experience in libraries and archives and her passion for public history, she will be an excellent steward for our archival and artifact collections and public engagement work,” Shogan said in a statement.

“As the Director of the first digital presidential library in our system, Kenvi will help shape a new course for how we think about access to, and engagement with, the stories and decisions that helped shape our nation.”

The Obama Presidential Center, which includes a museum and will feature art by the likes of Richard Hunt, is operated by the Obama Foundation and is under construction in Chicago, Ill. By contrast, the Obama Presidential Library is part of the presidential library system administered by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), a federal agency based just outside Washington, D.C., in College Park, Md.

Documenting the tenure of President Obama, who was in office from 2008 to 2016, the Obama Library is the 14th Presidential library and the first all-digital Presidential library. About 95 of the Obama Administrations’s Presidential records were originally created in a digital format, including photographs, videos, word-processing documents, emails, social media posts, and other digital material. There are also approximately 30 million pages of unclassified paper Presidential records in NARA’s Obama holdings.

“As the Director of the first digital presidential library in our system, Kenvi will help shape a new course for how we think about access to, and engagement with, the stories and decisions that helped shape our nation.” — Colleen Shogan, Archivist of the United States

Phillips brings more than 20 years of experience to her new role at the Obama Library. Her work at libraries, historic sites, and academic institutions spans collections, research, archives, and programming. Most recently, she was the first director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Brown University Library. Previously, she served as the first Johanna-Marie Frankel Curator for Race and Ethnicity at Harvard University’s Schlesinger Library, which “illuminates the lives of American women past and present.”

In prior roles, Phillips was assistant curator of manuscripts at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University. She was also a historian at the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. Her academic credentials include a doctorate in U.S. history and a master’s degree in public history from Howard University, and an undergraduate degree in history from the University of Tulsa.

“The Obama Foundation is excited to work with Dr. Kenvi Phillips as Director of the Barack Obama Presidential Library at the National Archives,” Obama Foundation CEO Valerie Jarrett said in a statement. “Her strong experience in archives and collections will help make the digitized records a great asset that will be available to everyone, everywhere, including historians, researchers, educators and students. We look forward to continuing to work with the National Archives as they provide access to these historic records, and we look forward to displaying artifacts from the Obama Presidential Library in the Foundation’s Obama Presidential Museum, which we will open on the South Side of Chicago in Spring 2026.” CT

 

IMAGE: Kenvi Phillips. | National Archives and Records Administration

 

FIND MORE about the appointment of Louise Bernard, director of the Obama Presidential Center’s Museum on Culture Type

 

BOOKSHELF
Kenvi Phillips co-authored “Liberating Minds; Liberating Society: Black Women in the Development of American Culture and Society” and “In Spite of the Double Drawbacks: African American Women in History and Culture.” Also consider, “The Obama Portraits” exploring the official National Portrait Gallery portraits of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michell Obama painted by Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, respectively, and “Obama: An Intimate Portrait” featuring images by former chief White House photographer Pete Souza.

 

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