A Determined Mind: Phyllis Boyd
Tags: Community Development, Racial Justice, Indianapolis, Resistance, Youth Development

A Determined Mind

Phyllis Boyd

Phyllis Boyd describes herself as a mother, an artist, and a good member of the community. “My personality changes day to day,” Phyllis said, about her disposition. She describes her disposition as curious, open, and determined.

Boyd is the Executive Director of Groundwork Indy. Groundwork Indy engages youth in community-based projects to enhance environmental, economic, and social well being. She is Groundwork’s founding executive director.

Phyllis grew up in Indy and now lives in the Meridian and Kessler neighborhood. She grew up in a stable two-parent family. Her father worked for the post office, and her mother had different jobs, such as working at a nursing home and being a housekeeper. She has good memories of gardening with her mother and attending family gatherings.

According to Phyllis, “I vowed when I was eighteen to never come back. I was interested in a lot of things- science and nature and art, and I just did not feel like [Indianapolis] was a place where I needed to do the things that I wanted to become.” When she was young, she felt a sense of oppression and not being seen, which made her want to get out. Back then, the oppression of white supremacy, structural racism, and institutional racism were not a part of mainstream conversations. She didn’t have words to explain why she couldn’t develop and grow. She felt that she need to be someplace else to support her mental and intellectual growth.

She received a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Indiana University in Bloomington, and later, a Master of Arts in Botany and a Master of Landscape Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin.

“It’s all related.”

She got involved in improving environmental, economic, and social well-being because she has always been passionate about nature and the relationship of people to their environments.

“I’ve always been interested in nature, and having an interest and love for it just encouraged me to learn about it and the environmental aspects,” said Phyllis. This passion would later lead her to a career centered around this issue. She elaborated, saying everything is connected and it is connected to our personal health. “It’s all related.” People are connected to nature.

Phyllis has a background in community planning and landscape architecture. She leaped on the opportunity to get involved with Groundwork Indy. She was excited to work with youth because it has been something she always wanted to do. She said that resistance to racism and oppression comes in different forms, and for her, she focuses on working with youths.

“For me, the outward focus is on working with youth and supporting them on their path to reaching their potential and on working with communities to address the structural racism that manifests as chronic disinvestment in the built environment of communities of color.” She is passionate about this issue and works to better the community in this way. Phyllis adds that the inward focus of resistance is on self-care and doing what brings her joy.

Groundwork Indy started up after a steering committee was formed, consisting of local community members. They tried to get a diverse collection of stakeholders to decide if a new nonprofit can be sustained and what they would actually do. They made it through that process, and later Phyllis became the first executive director.

When asked about her regrets, she said, “I regret… thinking that I had to prove anything. I spent a lot of my life being an overachiever, but I learned what I learned, and I got the degrees that I got.” Later, she explained that there might have been an easier road to doing the work she does now that didn’t involve getting as many degrees.

One thing that gets her excited is the ways that people can be free. “We could make decisions and changes in our lives that reflect who we are and not who society wants us to be,” Phyllis said. She said that people could be free by being attentive to how they act as consumers and really thinking about influencing their decisions on how they spend their time, energy, and money. People can be free by using their talent in this world to make a positive difference they want to see.

When discussing how she shapes the community and how the community shapes her, she spoke about the interconnectedness of the community. Phyllis said that everyone shapes the community, and everyone is a part of it. She used a metaphor of putting a drop of ink in a bucket of water, saying, “we are a part of each other.” When you put a drop of ink in a bucket of water, it dilutes throughout, affecting every particle. In this way, members of a community are each impacted by one another.

“I want to live in a world where people are free…”

When discussing what gets her out of bed, she said, “I want to live in a world where people are free, where you don’t have to live in a world where… there are people that live in terror where people want to kill them.” Phyllis has a passion for freedom. She added that she wants to live in a world where that behavior does not exist.

In her life, she has experienced racism. She added that the majority of African Americans have. Examples include having the N-word yelled at her from a car of white people. Phyllis said that this has happened multiple times. One time, a parent at her child's school said their children could not play together because of their skin color. Another instance is when a white woman said, “look at all those n*****s,” while Phyllis was on a service-learning trip with Groundwork youth at the Indiana Dunes several years ago.

In addition, she talked about experiencing micro and macro aggressions. One time, after Phyllis gave a presentation, a white woman commented on how well-spoken she was. In response, she thought, “Of course I am. I am a grown woman, the CEO of a non-profit, and have two master's degrees.” This was not the first time she has been underestimated.

Another example was when she was attending IU in Bloomington. To get to her school, she had to drive through Martinsville, a place her family had warned her about due to the 1968 racially motivated murder of Carol Jenkins, a cousin of Phyllis’s father. “I grew up understanding that there were people in this world who would hate and kill me just because of the color of my skin and their delusion that I was less than human, less than them,” Phyllis said.

“This is resistance.”

These experiences have had a lasting impact on her life. When talking about why these instances of racism are so painful and traumatic, she said, “They are at the core dehumanizing and associated with the very real threat of harm, violence, and death.” She brought up the history of racism: lynchings and slavery.

As a parent of Black children, she stated when her loved ones leave the house, “I know that one of the reasons they might not make it back is that someone decided that, due to the color of their skin, they did not have the right to exist.” She elaborated on this, saying that this is not hyperbole. Phyllis said that this is the terror that Black people live with daily. She continues, saying that she still sends her children into the world every day. “This is resistance.”

When asked about how she challenges what is expected of her, she said simply, “I am living my life.”

She answered a question about her life goal by saying, simply: “To be happy,” and later, “To be free and stay free.” When asked why freedom was important to her, she said, “it’s about being the human being that you want to be. It’s about removing delusions society has placed on me, on who I can be and what I can be.”

She believes her biggest challenge is giving herself time to be still and take care of herself.

Phyllis said that if she were to advise someone who wanted to help end racism, it would be to become educated about themselves and this country's history. She elaborated, saying to look up resources and organizations working to dismantle racism. Finally, she added, “the source of racism is white people, so it is the job of white people to stop it.”