Anna Julia Cooper was one of those people in history that defies logic when it comes to that question, “why have we not heard more about this extraordinary woman?’ She was an author, educator, speaker and one of the most prominent African American scholars in United States history. Ms. Cooper described her own vocation as ‘the education of neglected people’ and saw education, and specifically higher education, as not only the means for African American advancement, but especially a means for African American women advancement. She believed ‘that intellectual development, with the self-reliance and capacity of earning a livelihood which it gives’ would supersede any need for dependence on men, allowing women to “extend their horizons and to have their sympathies broadened and deepened and multiplied.”
Ms. Cooper’s (born in 1858- died in 1964) life reads like an epic adventure that not too many movies can imitate. She was born in slavery to an African American mother, Hannah Stanley, and white slave master, George Washington Haywood, in 1858 in Raleigh, NC. Cooper wrote in her autobiography, entitled ‘The Third Step’ that, “I owe nothing to my white father beyond the initial act of procreation..”
In her early childhood home, there was no one who was literate, but eventually she was hired out as a nursemaid in the household of Charles Busbee, a prominent Raleigh NC lawyer. This domestic situation enabled Cooper to be surrounded by books and education that would develop into a lifetime obsession of continual learning and teaching.
In 1868, at the age of ten, Cooper received a scholarship and began her formal education at the newly opened Saint Augustine’s Normal School and Collegiate Institute in Raleigh, NC, founded by the local Episcopal Diocese. The school’s purpose was to train teachers to educate former slaves and their families. This school offered educational levels ranging from primary to high school, including trade skills. During Cooper’s 14 years at St. Augustine, she distinguished herself as a bright and ambitious student, who showed equal promise in both liberal arts and analytical disciplines such as math and science, languages (Latin, French, Greek), and English Literature. In 1877, at the age of 19, Ms. Cooper protested the exclusion of young women from higher courses scheduled only for ministerial studies, and therefore, only for men. At this time she met and married Rev. George A. Christopher Cooper, who was from Nassau, British West Indies. Rev. Cooper was the second Black ordained clergyman in the Protestant Episcopal Church in NC. Unfortunately, two years later, in 1879, Rev. Cooper died and left Mrs. Cooper a widow at the young age of 21. She never married again.
Ms. Cooper stayed at St. Augustine’s two more years as an instructor, teaching the classics, modern history, higher English, and vocal and instrumental music. In 1881, Ms. Cooper decided to leave St. Augustine’s, due to her denial of a modest requested increase of her $30/ month teaching salary, and went on to Oberlin College in Ohio, where she attended classes from 1881 to 1887. She obtained her B.A in 1884 and an M.A in 1887, both in Mathematics and the Classics. Oberlin was one of the few colleges at that time that allowed Blacks or women to attend higher educational institutions, and Ms. Cooper was the 6th African American woman to be accepted into college in the United States.
After attaining her degrees, Ms. Cooper moved to Washington DC in 1887, and was recruited to work at the Washington Colored High School, or M Street School, the only all-Black school in DC, and the first African American High school established in the US. She began at M Street School as a Math and Science teacher, and was eventually promoted to principal in 1902. Ms. Cooper worked ceaselessly to present a more positive image of her race, by joining a variety of abolitionist societies, women’s rights groups, literary and self-improvement clubs, and benevolent organizations. During her years at M Street School, Ms. Cooper also completed her first book, ‘A Voice from The South: By a Woman from the South’, published in 1892. It was her only published work but it is widely viewed as one of the first articulations of Black Feminism ever. The book advanced a vision of self-determination through education and social uplift for African American women. Its central thesis was that educational, moral, and spiritual progress of black women would improve the general standing of the entire African American community. She stated that the violent natures of men often run counter to the goals of higher education, so it is important to foster more female intellectuals because they will bring more elegance to education. The book touched on a variety of topics, from racism and socioeconomic realities of black families, to the administration of the Episcopal Church.
The 1890s were peak years of achievement and experience for Ms. Cooper. She and other individuals organized and mobilized to arouse public opinion and direction while racist terrorism escalated. She attended numerous conferences and presented lectures, including delivering speeches at the World’s Congress of Representative Women in Chicago in 1893, and traveling to London in 1900 to present a speech entitled, ‘The Negro Problem in America’, at the first held Pan-African Conference.
Cooper’s achievements both in and outside of the classroom garnered contempt from white colleagues and supervisors, and she was dismissed from M Street School in 1906 after a controversy erupted surrounding her character and behavior. As a testament to her reputation and achievements at M Street School, Cooper was re-hired in 1910 as a teacher by a new superintendent. Motivated rather than defeated by this scandal, Cooper decided to return to school, and in 1924 became only the fourth black woman in the United States to receive a doctorate degree, attaining her Ph.D. at the University of Paris. While teaching and working on her doctorate, Cooper was also raising five children whom she had adopted in 1915 after her brother passed away.
Cooper’s retirement from M Street School in 1930 was by no means the end of her political activism. The same year she retired, she accepted the position of president at Frelinghuysen University, a school founded to provide classes for DC residents lacking access to higher education. Cooper worked for Frelinghuysen for twenty years, first as president and then as registrar, and left the school only a decade before she passed away in 1964 at the age of 105. While notable for her long life span, Cooper is most remarkable for the amount and significance of her accomplishments over the course of her lifetime, as well as the dedication and perseverance she exhibited while fighting tirelessly for what she thought was just. Cooper made no concessions in her fight; believing “a cause is not worthier than its weakest elements,” she decried movements advocating for women’s rights and racial justice for ignoring black women who were victims of both oppressions.
Adamant in her fight for a just, equal society, Anna Julia Cooper lived a remarkable life in which she refused to acquiesce to the demands and expectations of a white, male dominated society. In a place and time largely unreceptive to the needs of people of color and women, Cooper broke barriers and insisted that her voice as a black woman from the south be heard and acknowledged. Her accomplishments and vision have helped not only make Cooper one of the most noted African-American intellectuals in the history of the nation, but have helped reframe the understanding of intersections of race and gender and their political, cultural and personal implications in pursuit of a better nation.
SOURCES:
http://cooperproject.org/about-anna-julia-cooper/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_J._Cooper
The Historical Memory Recovery Channel 