Shirlene Walker was born in Mc Gee, MS, on May 30, 1956, into an Afro-American family. She was brought up in Mendenhall, MS, until she graduated from high school. Through a work program while in high school, she worked for Voice of Calvary (VOC) in a health clinic in Mendenhall where she met Dolphus Weary, who, with his wife Rosie, provided encouragement and support for Phillips in her Christian life. She attended college in Louisiana and then the University Medical Center in Jackson, MS, and was trained as a medical technician. After graduation from the latter in 1980, she worked in a hospital, then in a government-funded clinic owned by black doctors, and then in an arthritis clinic. She married Clarence Arthur Phillips; at the time of this interview they had one son.

In 1987, Phillips began work at Voice of Calvary in Jackson as the Institutional Resource Development Coordinator. The primary focus of her work was fund-raising for VOC and she was involved in developing grant proposals and working with supporting foundations and institutions.

The Voice of Calvary Ministries, founded first in Mendenhall, MS, and moved in 1974 to Jackson, MS, was led by John Perkins. The ministry operated on a holistic model of addressing community and personal needs, whether medical, social, legal, economic, educational, or spiritual in nature. (See Collection 367, Papers of John M. Perkins.)