Milagros Phillips

Affectionately known as “The Race Healer,” Milagros is a keynote speaker, TEDx presenter, certified coach, and author. She has been presenting and keynoting programs for over 35 years on race literacy, racial conditioning, and healing from racism that inform, transform, and lead to inspired action. These programs are presented at educational institutions, Fortune 100 companies, corporations, and public courses and seminars. 

Milagros was the Founding Executive Director of “The National Resource Center for the Healing of Racism” and she has served as Expert in Residence for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. She co-developed the Race Equity Framework Model to End HIV and authored Speaking Race and Healthcare to End HIV: Manual to New Dialogue for The National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC). The Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution has incorporated her Race Demystified & the Healing Process as part of the curriculum in their conflict resolution certification training. Michigan State University uses part of her Transformation, Race, and Healing program to train their diversity facilitators. She served as the senior consultant for Search for Common Ground and The Faith and Politics Institute as they worked collaboratively to develop Congressional Conversations on Race (CCR), where she developed a three-part approach to a race conversation that became the foundation for CCR, a program that she co-facilitated for three years. This program assisted members of Congress in crafting a productive conversation about race leading to community action and collaboration. Milagros has been invited to be a blogger for the Community and Culture’s Dialogue on Public Libraries at the Aspen Institute and is currently a member of the American Ballet Theater (ABT) RISE Advisory Council as they create greater inclusion in the world of Ballet.

Her background uniquely prepared her to do this work. Milagros’ indoctrination began early as a Black, Hispanic child. She spent her formative years living under a dictatorship in the Caribbean and understands the various forms that oppression takes. She has experienced racism and prejudice in two languages and understands the impact of both racism and colonization on the human psyche. Moreover, she is committed to compassionate transformation.

In her 35+ years facilitating seminars and conversations around race, she found that people often lack the information with which to transform. Without the systemic and institutional background that has led to mass racial conditioning, it is difficult to get beyond the personal. The missing information associated with race keeps us in a loop of endless repetition. However, we are not stuck. Milagros believes that race literacy and awareness puts us in the driver’s seat of our lives and allows us to choose differently.

Fluent in English and Spanish, Milagros is also the producer and host of Race Healer TV and creator of Race Healer Magazine. She is the author of three books: 11 Reasons to Become Race Literate: A Pocket Guide to a New Conversation; 8 Essentials to a Race Conversation: A Manual to a New Dialogue; and Speaking Race in Healthcare: A Manual for the Dialogue. Her newest book Cracking the Healers Code: A Prescription for Healing Racism and Finding Wholeness, will be published in August 2021.