[2] Born Alethia Annette Lewis, she took the surnames of her first (George Lafayette Hoage, m. 1944, d. 1945) and second (Joseph Phinazee, m. 1962) husbands.

[3] Phinazee attended the public schools of Orangeburg and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in modern foreign languages from Fisk University in 1939.

[2] Phinazee started her teaching career in North Carolina at the Caswell County Training School from 1939 to 1940 as a teacher-librarian.

After serving as a cataloguer at Southern Illinois University (1957–62), she returned to Atlanta University as head of special services, which included the administration of the Trevor Arnett Library's Negro Collection – a world-renowned depository of American Africana (1962–67) – and returned to a professorship at the School of Library Service (1963–69).

[5] Her daughter, Ramona Hoage Edelin (born 1945), became an academic and activist who helped popularize use of the term "African American.