Anna J. Cooper

{{Short description|African-American author, educator, speaker, and scholar (1858–1964)}} {{redirect|Anna Cooper|the Liberian educator|Anna E. Cooper}} {{AI-generated|date=November 2025}} {{Use American English|date=March 2026}} {{Use mdy dates|date=July 2013}} {{Infobox person | image = A J Cooper.jpg | caption = Cooper {{circa|1902}} | birth_name = Anna Julia Haywood | birth_date = {{Birth date|1858|08|10}} | birth_place = Raleigh, North Carolina, US | death_date = {{Death date and age|1964|02|27|1858|08|10}} | death_place = Washington, D.C., US | burial_place = City Cemetery in Raleigh, NC | education = {{ubl|Oberlin College (BA, MA)|University of Paris (PhD)}} | known_for = Fourth African American woman to receive a PhD | spouse = {{marriage|George A. C. Cooper|1877|1879|end=died}} | children = Lula Love Lawson, John Love{{sfn|Hutchinson|1981|p=111, 125}} | mother = Hannah Stanley Haywood | relatives = John Haywood (grandfather) }}

'''Anna Julia Cooper''' ({{nee}} '''Haywood'''; August 10, 1858{{spnd}}February 27, 1964) was an African American author, educator, and activist. Although born enslaved, Cooper pursued higher education at Oberlin College in Ohio, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1884 and a master's degree in mathematics in 1887. At the age of sixty-six, she completed her doctoral studies at the University of Paris, making her the fourth African American woman to earn a PhD. She was a well-known member of Washington, D.C.'s African-American community, and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

Cooper's scholarly contributions to sociology started with her first book, ''A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South'', which is widely acknowledged as one of the first articulations of Black feminism and gave her the often-used title of "the Mother of Black Feminism".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://libarts.hamptonu.edu/sociology/founders.cfm |title=Foundations of African-American Sociology|publisher=Hampton University|website=Hampton University Department of Sociology|access-date=March 5, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170306033303/http://libarts.hamptonu.edu/sociology/founders.cfm|archive-date=March 6, 2017}} From {{citation |author=Melvin Barber |author2=Leslie Innis |author3=Emmit Hunt |title=African American Contributions to Sociology}}</ref>

==Biography== thumb|upright=1.05|Cooper in 1892

===Childhood === Anna "Annie" Julia Haywood was born enslaved in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1858. She and her mother, Hannah Stanley Haywood, were enslaved by George Washington Haywood, one of the sons of North Carolina's longest-serving state Treasurer John Haywood, who helped found the University of North Carolina. Either George, who enslaved her mother, or his brother, Dr. Fabius Haywood, who enslaved her older brothers, Rufus and Andrew,<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.episcopalarchives.org/Afro-Anglican_history/exhibit/leadership/cooper.php |title=Anna Julia Cooper, 1858-1964 |date=2008|website=The Church Awakens: African Americans and the Struggle for Justice|publisher=The Archives of the Episcopal Church DFMS/PECUSA|access-date=August 26, 2016}}</ref> was probably Anna's father; Anna's mother refused to clarify paternity. George became state attorney for Wake County, North Carolina, and together with a brother owned a plantation in Greene County, Alabama.<ref>{{cite web |title=Anna J. Cooper 1858-1964 |author=North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources |access-date=December 26, 2018 |url=http://www.ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?MarkerId=H-119 |author-link=North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources |archive-date=December 29, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181229220203/http://www.ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?MarkerId=H-119 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Cooper worked as a domestic servant in the Haywood home and had the two aforementioned older brothers.<ref name=Giles>{{cite journal|last=Giles|first=Mark S.|title=Special Focus: Dr. Anna Julia Cooper, 1858–1964: Teacher, Scholar, and Timeless Womanist|journal=The Journal of Negro Education|date=Fall 2006|volume=75|issue=4|pages=621–634 |jstor=40034662}}</ref> Andrew, enslaved by Fabius J. Haywood, later served in the Spanish–American War. Rufus was also born enslaved and became the leader of the musical group ''Stanley's Band''.<ref>{{Cite book|title=A Voice from the South|last=Hutchison|year=1981|pages=26–27}}</ref>

===Education===

In 1868, when Cooper was nine years old, she received a scholarship and began her education at the newly opened Saint Augustine's Normal School and Collegiate Institute in Raleigh, North Carolina, founded by the local Episcopal diocese to train teachers to educate the formerly enslaved and their families. The Reverend J. Brinton offered Cooper a scholarship to help pay for her expenses.<ref>{{Cite book|title=A Woman of Courage: The Story of Anna J. Cooper|last=Martin-Felton|author-link=Zora Martin-Felton|first=Zora|publisher=Education Department, Anacostia Neighborhood Museum of the Smithsonian Institution|year=2000|location=Washington|pages=14|oclc=53457649}}</ref> According to Mark S. Giles, a Cooper biographer, "the educational levels offered at St. Augustine ranged from primary to high school, including trade-skill training."<ref name="Giles" /> During her 14 years at St. Augustine's, she distinguished herself as a bright and ambitious student who showed equal promise in both liberal arts and analytical disciplines such as mathematics and science; her subjects included languages (Latin, French, Greek), English literature, math, and science. Although the school had a special track reserved for women – dubbed the "Ladies' Course" – and the administration actively discouraged women from pursuing higher-level courses, Cooper fought for her right to take a course reserved for men by demonstrating her academic ability.<ref name="Giles" /> During this period, St. Augustine's pedagogical emphasis was on training young men for the ministry and preparing them for additional training at four-year universities. One of these men, George A. C. Cooper, would later become her husband. He died after only two years of marriage.<ref name="Giles" />

Cooper's academic excellence enabled her to work as a tutor for younger children, which also helped her pay for her educational expenses. After completing her studies, she remained at the institution as an instructor. In the 1883–1884 school year, she taught classics, modern history, higher English, and vocal and instrumental music; she is not listed as faculty in the 1884–1885 year, but in the 1885–1886 year she is listed as "Instructor in Classic, Rhetoric, Etc."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/catalogueofstaug18821899|title=Catalogue of St. Augustine's Normal School, 1882–99|date=1899|via=Internet Archive|access-date=March 23, 2016|publisher=Raleigh (N.C.): St. Augustine's Normal School and Collegiate Institute}}</ref> Her husband's early death may have contributed to her ability to continue teaching; if she had stayed married, she might have been encouraged or required to withdraw from the university to become a housewife.<ref name=Giles />

After her husband's death, Cooper entered Oberlin College in Ohio, where she continued to follow the study designated for men, graduating in 1884.<ref name=Dyson>{{cite news |title=Mrs. Anna J. Cooper |first=Zita E. |last=Dyson |date=2017 |orig-date={{Circa}} 1931 |url=https://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=ajc_bio}}</ref> Given her academic qualifications, she was admitted as a sophomore.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=From Slavery to the Sorbonne and Beyond: The Life and Writings of Anna J. Cooper|last=Gabel|first=Leona|publisher=Smith College|year=1982|isbn=0-87391-028-1|location=Northampton, Massachusetts|pages=19}}</ref> She often attempted to take four classes, rather than three as was prescribed by the college; she also was attracted to Oberlin by its reputation for music, but was unable to take as many classes in piano as she would have wished.<ref name=":0" /> Among her classmates were fellow black women Ida Gibbs (later Hunt) and Mary Church Terrell.<ref name=":0" /> At Oberlin, Cooper was part of the "LLS", "one of the two literary societies for women, whose regular programs featured lectures by distinguished speakers as well as singers and orchestras".<ref name=":0" /> After teaching briefly at Wilberforce University, she returned to St. Augustine's in 1885. She then returned to Oberlin and earned an M.A. in mathematics in 1888, making her one of the first two black women – along with Mary Church Terrell, who received her M.A. in the same year – to earn a master's degree.{{sfn|Evans|2008}} In 1890–1891 she published an essay on "Higher Education of Women", which argued for the benefits of black women being trained in classical literature, referring to both Socrates and Sappho among her examples, and demonstrated an interest in access to education which would inform much of her later career.{{sfn|Evans|2008|pp=143–4}} In writing this essay, she preceded W. E. B. Du Bois' similar arguments in "Of the Training of Black Men" (''The Souls of Black Folk'', 1903) by almost a decade.{{sfn|Evans|2008|p=144}}

In 1900, she made her first trip to Europe to participate in the First Pan-African Conference in London, and then toured Europe:{{sfn|Belle|2025}} After visiting the cathedral towns of Scotland and England, she went to Paris for the World Exposition. "After a week at the Exposition, she went to Oberammergau to see the Passion Play, thence to Munich and other German towns, and then to Italy through Rome, Naples, Venice, Pompeii, Mt. Vesuvius, and Florence."<ref name=Dyson/>

===Washington DC years === She later moved to Washington, DC. In 1892, Cooper, Helen Appo Cook, Ida B. Wells, Charlotte Forten Grimké, Mary Jane Peterson, Mary Church Terrell, and Evelyn Shaw formed the Colored Women's League in Washington, D.C. The goals of the service-oriented club were to promote unity, social progress, and the best interests of the African-American community. Cook was elected president.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Smith |first1=Jessie Carney |title=Notable Black American women. |date=1992 |publisher=Gale Research Inc. |page=123 |edition=v1 |language=en |chapter=Josephine Beall Bruce|oclc=34106990 }}</ref>

Cooper developed a close friendship with Grimké, and later wrote a memoir about the Grimké Family, titled "The Early Years in Washington: Reminiscences of Life with the Grimkés,"{{sfn|Belle|2025}} which appeared in ''Personal Recollections of the Grimké family and the Life and Writings of Charlotte Forten Grimké'' (privately published in 1951).<ref>Lemert, Charles, and Esme Bhan (eds), [https://books.google.com/books?id=JfZsAAAAQBAJ&q=Anna+J.+Cooper+Personal+Recollections+of+the+Grimke+Family&pg=PA306 ''The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including a Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters''], Rowman and Littlefield, 1998, p. 306.</ref>

She began as a tenured teacher, teaching Latin, math and science at M Street High School, becoming principal in 1901<ref name=Busby>Busby, Margaret, "Anna J. Cooper", ''Daughters of Africa'', London: Jonathan Cape, 1992, p. 136</ref> or 1902.<ref name=nmaahc>{{cite news |url=https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/anna-julia-cooper-educator-writer-and-intellectual |title=Anna Julia Cooper: Educator, Writer and Intellectual |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=10 Aug 2023 |newspaper=National Museum of African American History and Culture |publisher=The Smithsonian |access-date=20 Mar 2024 |quote=She became the seventh principal at M Street High School in 1902}}</ref><ref name=turner>{{cite news |last=Moody-Turner |first=Shirley |date=19 Mar 2024 |title=Black female head of a top D.C. school was 'punished for leading' |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/19/anna-julia-cooper-dc-education-dunbar/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3d1f24a%2F65f9b858715ef2295fc7b79a%2F596a64cdade4e20ee371bafc%2F13%2F52%2F65f9b858715ef2295fc7b79a |newspaper=The Washington Post |location=Washington DC |access-date=20 Mar 2024}}</ref> She later became entangled in a controversy involving the differing attitudes about black education, as she advocated for a model of classical education espoused by W. E. B. Du Bois, "designed to prepare eligible students for higher education and leadership", rather than the vocational program that was promoted by Booker T. Washington.<ref name=":0" /> This approach to the education of black students clashed with the backlash over Reconstruction gains in Black civil and political rights, and resulted in the D.C. School Board refusing to reappoint her in 1906.<ref name=nmaahc/><ref name=turner/> Later, she was recalled to M Street, and she fit her work on her doctoral thesis into "nooks and crannies of free time".<ref name=":0" /> thumb|M Street School

===''A Voice from the South''===

During her years as a teacher and principal at M Street High School, Cooper also completed her first book, titled ''A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South'', published in 1892, and delivered many speeches calling for civil rights and women's rights.<ref name="Washington">{{cite book |last=Washington |first=Mary Helen |title=A Voice from the South |chapter=Introduction |year=1988 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York|isbn=978-0-19-506323-3|pages=xxvii–liv}}</ref> The book is widely viewed as one of the first articulations of black feminism<ref name="Busby" /> and advanced a vision of self-determination through education and social uplift for African-American women. Its central thesis was that black women's educational, moral, and spiritual progress would improve the general standing of the African-American community. She says that men's violent natures often counter the goals of higher education, so it is essential to foster more female intellectuals because they will bring more elegance to education.<ref name="Ritchie">{{cite book|last=Ritchie|first=Joy|title=Available Means: An Anthology of Women's Rhetoric(s)|year=2001|publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press|location=Pittsburgh, PA|isbn=978-0-8229-5753-9|pages=163–164|author2=Kate Ronald}}</ref>

This view was criticized by some as submissive to the 19th-century cult of true womanhood, but others label it as one of the most important arguments for Black feminism in the 19th century.<ref name="Ritchie" /> Cooper advanced the view that educated and successful black women must support their underprivileged peers in achieving their goals. The essays in ''A Voice from the South'' also touched other topics such as the socioeconomic realities of Black families and the administration of the Episcopal Church.

''A Voice from the South'' received significant praise from leaders in the black community.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Late Publications, Books, Magazines, Etc.. |journal=Freeman |volume=5 |issue=9 |year=1893 |page=3}}</ref><ref>{{cite newspaper |title=''A Voice From The South'' By a Black Woman of the South |newspaper=The Cleveland Gazette |date=May 6, 1893 |page= 2}}</ref> It was widely praised within the Black community and among intellectuals for its pioneering ideas on race, gender, and education.<ref>{{Cite book |last=May |first=Vivian M. |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781135911560 |title=Anna Julia Cooper, Visionary Black Feminist |date=2012 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-91156-0 |doi=10.4324/9780203936542}}</ref>

===Later years=== [[File:Anna Julia Hayward Cooper House - Washington, DC.jpg|thumb|Former home of Anna J. Cooper in the LeDroit Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The home is located beside Anna J. Cooper Circle.]] Cooper was an author, educator, and public speaker. In 1893, she delivered the opening address at the World's Congress of Representative Women in Chicago. She was one of five African-American women invited to speak at this event, along with: Fannie Barrier Williams, Sarah Jane Woodson Early, Hallie Quinn Brown, and Fanny Jackson Coppin.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hairston|first1=Eric Ashley|title=The Ebony Column|date=2013|publisher=University of Tennessee Press|location=Knoxville|isbn=978-1-57233-984-2|page=121}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|editor1-last=Sewall|editor1-first=May Wright|title=The World's Congress of Representative Women|date=1894|publisher=Rand McNally|location=Chicago|pages=711–715|url=http://womhist.alexanderstreet.com/socm/doc4b.htm}}</ref>

In a 1902 speech, she said:

{{Blockquote|text=A nation's greatness is not dependent upon the things it make and uses. Things without thots [ sic] are mere vulgarities. America can boast her expanse of territory, her gilded domes, her paving stones of silver dollars; but the question of deepest moment in this nation today is its men and its women, the elevation at which it receives its "vision" into the firmament of eternal truth.|sign=|source="The Ethics of the Negro Question", September 5, 1902<ref>{{citation |url=https://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=ajc_addresses |title=The Ethics of the Negro Question |first=Anna Julia |last=Cooper |date=5 September 1902 |website=Digital Howard |publisher=Howard University}}.</ref>}}

In 1914, at 56, Cooper began courses for her doctoral degree at Columbia University. However, she was forced to interrupt her studies in 1915 when she adopted her late half-brother's five children upon their mother's death. Later, she transferred her credits to the University of Paris, which did not accept her Columbia thesis, an edition of ''Le Pèlerinage de Charlemagne''. Over a decade, she researched and composed her dissertation, completing her coursework in 1924. Cooper defended her thesis "The Attitude of France on the Question of Slavery Between 1789 and 1848" in 1925. Cooper's retirement from Washington Colored High School in 1930 was not 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 died in 1964 at the age of 105.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://cooperproject.org/about-anna-julia-cooper/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120128010655/http://cooperproject.org/about-anna-julia-cooper/|url-status=usurped|archive-date=January 28, 2012|title=Anna Julia Cooper's Bio - Anna Julia Cooper Project|language=en-US|access-date=2019-04-18}}</ref> At the age of 65, she became the fourth Black woman in American history to earn a Doctor of Philosophy degree.{{sfn|Moody-Turner|Evans|2024}} Her work was eventually published in an anthology of medieval French literature and was requested for classes and the bookstore at Harvard.<ref name="www2.oberlin.edu">{{Cite web |title="This Scholarly and Colored Alumna": Transcriptions of Anna Julia Cooper's Correspondence with Oberlin College |url=http://www2.oberlin.edu/external/EOG/History322/AnnaJuliaCooper/AnnaJuliaCooper.htm |access-date=2019-04-18 |website=www2.oberlin.edu}}</ref>

===Frelinghuysen University=== In 1929, Cooper was elected to succeed Jesse Lawson as president of Frelinghuysen University, a post she assumed in 1930. Under Cooper's leadership in the 1930s, Frelinghuysen University focused on increasing literacy among the African American working poor and providing liberal arts and vocational education for unskilled workers.<ref name="service" />{{rp|pages=50–51}} Karen A. Johnson writes in ''"In Service for the Common Good" Anna Julia Cooper and Adult Education'' that Cooper practiced a "decolonizing pedagogy", further saying:<ref name="service">{{cite journal |last1=Johnson |first1=Karen A. |title="In Service for the Common Good": Anna Julia Cooper and Adult Education |journal=African American Review |date=2009 |volume=43 |issue=1 |pages=45–56 |doi=10.1353/afa.0.0023 |s2cid=142854036 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/103/article/388650 |access-date=January 11, 2023 |language=en |issn=1945-6182|url-access=subscription }}</ref>{{rp|pages=53–54}} {{Blockquote |text= Cooper believed that the essential purpose for a "decolonizing" approach to adult education content was to assist her students in developing their abilities to question dominant thought&nbsp;... Cooper's ultimate goal for her learning adults was their preparation for intellectual enlightenment as well as to equip them to battle for a better society at large. }}

After the university found servicing its mortgage prohibitive, she moved the institution to her own house.<ref>{{cite web|title=Decennial Catalogue of Frelinghuysen University|year=1939|first=Anna J.|last=Cooper|url=https://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=ajc_freling|access-date=December 28, 2018}}</ref> Cooper retired from her position as president in 1940, but she continued her involvement with the university, taking a position as its registrar.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Chitty |first1=Arthur Ben |title=Women and Black Education: Three Profiles |journal=Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church |date=1983 |volume=52 |issue=2 |pages=153–165 |jstor=42973958 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/42973958 |access-date=January 12, 2023 |issn=0018-2486}}</ref>{{rp|page=158}}<ref name="service" />{{rp|page=50}}

=== Impact on education === Anna Julia Cooper's educational philosophy was deeply rooted in the belief that education is a transformative tool for social change and racial uplift, particularly for African Americans. As an educator and later the president of Frelinghuysen University, Cooper championed a holistic approach to learning that went beyond mere vocational training. She emphasized that education should cultivate critical thinking, self-improvement, and active civic engagement, preparing students to be not only skilled but socially responsible individuals.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Johnson |first=Karen A. |date=2009 |title="In Service for the Common Good": Anna Julia Cooper and Adult Education |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27802558 |journal=African American Review |volume=43 |issue=1 |pages=45–56 |doi=10.1353/afa.0.0023 |jstor=27802558 |issn=1062-4783|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Scholars argue that Anna Julia Cooper's work has been overshadowed by more celebrated figures like W.E.B. Du Bois, even though her contributions often preceded or paralleled his ideas. For example, Cooper addressed concepts akin to “double consciousness” and critiqued portrayals of Black Americans in literature well before Du Bois, who frequently referenced her ideas without providing proper attribution.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Phillips |first=Kimberly Martinez |date=August 2023 |title="We Come Not Here to Talk"—Revisiting the Work of Anna Julia Cooper: An Analysis of Standpoint Theory and Her Placement in the Academic Canon |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/symb.632 |journal=Symbolic Interaction |language=en |volume=46 |issue=3 |pages=311–331 |doi=10.1002/symb.632 |issn=0195-6086|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

===Death=== On February 27, 1964, Cooper died in Washington, D.C., at the age of 105 from a heart attack. Her memorial was held in a chapel on the campus of Saint Augustine's College, in Raleigh, North Carolina, where her academic career began. She was buried alongside her husband at the City Cemetery in Raleigh.

==Legacy== Cooper's work was foundational for Black feminist thought and anticipated later concepts of intersectionality, as her writings underscored the interconnected struggles faced by Black women. Scholars today recognize her influence on both feminist and civil rights movements.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Carby |first=Hazel V. |date=1985 |title="On the Threshold of Woman's Era": Lynching, Empire, and Sexuality in Black Feminist Theory |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1343470 |journal=Critical Inquiry |volume=12 |issue=1 |pages=262–277 |doi=10.1086/448329 |jstor=1343470 |issn=0093-1896|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Her book ''A Voice from the South'' remains a seminal work in Black feminist theory and is widely cited in courses on sociology, history, and gender studies, solidifying her position as a foundational thinker.<ref>{{Cite book |last=May |first=Vivian M. |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781135911560 |title=Anna Julia Cooper, Visionary Black Feminist |date=2012-08-21 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-91156-0 |edition=0 |doi=10.4324/9780203936542}}</ref>

In 2009, a tuition-free private middle school was opened and named in her honor, the Anna Julia Cooper Episcopal School on historic Church Hill in Richmond, Virginia.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://annajuliacooperepiscopalschool.org/our-school/school-history/ |title=School History |publisher=Anna Julia Cooper Episcopal School}}</ref>

The Anna Julia Cooper Center on Gender, Race, and Politics in the South at Wake Forest University was established in Anna Cooper's honor. Melissa Harris-Perry is the founding director.<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20150910032656/http://cooperproject.org/about/director/ "Director"]}}, Anna Julia Cooper Project on Gender, Race and Politics in the South.</ref>

There is an Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women's Studies at Spelman College.<ref>{{Cite web |date=April 27, 2014 |title=Bio {{!}} Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Ph.D. Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women's Studies |url=https://faculty.spelman.edu/beverlyguysheftall/bio-and-cv/bio/}}</ref>

Anna Julia Cooper is the only African American woman to be quoted in the U.S. Passport.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Davis |first=Sarajanee |date=December 10, 2019 |title=Cooper, Anna Julia |url=https://www.ncpedia.org/cooper-anna-julia-K-8#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20cause%20of%20freedom%20is,the%20very%20birthright%20of%20humanity.%E2%80%9D&text=from%20the%20South-,Dr.,Hannah%20Stanley%20Haywood's%20three%20children. |access-date=February 26, 2024 |website=N.C. Government & Heritage Library}}</ref> Pages 24 and 25 of the 2016 United States passport contain the following quotation: "The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class – it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity." – Anna Julia Cooper

In 2009, the United States Postal Service released a commemorative stamp in Cooper's honor. The 44-cent First-Class commemorative stamp of Anna Julia Cooper showcases a portrait painted by Kadir Nelson from San Diego, CA, which he created based on an undated photograph of Cooper.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Anna Julia Cooper Immortalized on Postage |url=https://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2009/pr09_057.htm |access-date=2024-11-01 |website=about.usps.com}}</ref>

Cooper's career was dramatized in ''Tempestuous Elements'', a play by Kia Corthron, premiered at Washington's Arena Stage in 2024.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Tempestuous Elements |url=https://www.arenastage.org/tickets/2023-24-season/tempestuous-elements/ |access-date=2025-06-25|website=arenastage.org}}</ref>

Cooper is honored on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on February 28, underscoring the recognition of her social and educational contributions within religious communities.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W3e7DwAAQBAJ |title=Lesser Feasts and Fasts 2018 |date=2019-12-01 |publisher=Church Publishing, Inc. |isbn=978-1-64065-234-7 |language=en}}</ref> Liturgical commemorations of her life and ministry have taken place since at least 2017.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Korkzan |first1=Shireen |title=North Carolina church honors Anna Julia Cooper, education rights advocate for Black women and girls |url=https://episcopalnewsservice.org/2026/03/05/north-carolina-church-honors-anna-julia-cooper-education-rights-advocate-for-black-women-and-girls/ |website=episcopalnewsservice.org |publisher=Episcopal News Service |access-date=7 March 2026}}</ref>

== Timeline == *1858: Born enslaved in Raleigh, North Carolina.<ref name="The Black Washingtonians">{{Cite book|title=The Black Washingtonians: The Anacostia Museum Illustrated Chronology, 300 Years of African American History|year=2005|publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Inc|location=Hoboken, New Jersey|isbn=978-0471402589|pages=271–272}}</ref> *1877: Marries George A. C. Cooper. *1879: Husband dies, and Anna is widowed at 21 years of age.<ref name="The Black Washingtonians"/> *1887: Begins teaching math and Latin at the Preparatory School.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Black Washingtonians|year=2005|pages=118}}</ref> *1888: Becomes one of the first black women to earn a master's degree from Oberlin College. *1891: Participates in the weekly "Saturday Circle" or "Saturday Nighters" salon of Black Washingtonians.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Black Washingtonians|year=2005|pages=349–350}}</ref> *1892: Publishes "A Voice From The South ''By a Black Woman of the South".'' *1892: Founded the Colored Women's League with Helen Appo Cook.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Black Washingtonians|pages=1180}}</ref> *1893: Co-hosts anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells with Frederick Douglass and Lucy Ellen Moten<ref name="ReferenceA">{{Cite book|title=The Black Washingtonians|pages=349–350}}</ref> *1893: Becomes only woman elected to the American Negro Academy.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> *1893: Attends the World's Congress of Representative Women and reads paper titled "The Intellectual Progress of the Colored Women of the United States since the Emancipation Proclamation" *1900: Attends the First Pan-African Conference in London, reads paper titled "The Negro Problem in America", and joins the executive committee.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Black Washingtonians|pages=132}}</ref> *1901: Becomes second Black female principal of M. Street High School.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Black Washingtonians|pages=134}}</ref> *1925: Earns doctorate from University of Paris, purchases home in LeDroit Park, begins hosting monthly "Les Amis de la Langue Francaise".<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Black Washingtonians|pages=179}}</ref> *1929: Becomes second president of Frelinghuysen University in Washington, D.C.<ref name="ReferenceB">{{Cite book|title=The Black Washingtonians|pages=184}}</ref> *1940: Becomes registrar of Frelinghuysen University and hosts classes in her LeDroit home.<ref name="ReferenceB"/> *1964: February 27, Anna J. Cooper dies in Washington D.C. at the age of 105.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Black Washingtonians|pages=271–272}}</ref>

==Works== *{{cite book |last=Cooper |first=Anna Julia |title=A Voice From the South |place=Xenia, Ohio |publisher=Aldine Printing House |year=1892 |url=https://archive.org/details/voicefromsouth00coop}} **{{cite book |last=Cooper |first=Anna Julia |author-mask=2 |title=A Voice From the South |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1990 |isbn=9780195063233 |editor-last=Washington |editor-first=Mary Helen |editor-link=Mary Helen Washington}} **{{cite book |last=Cooper |first=Anna Julia |author-mask=2 |editor-first=Janet |editor-last=Neary |isbn=978-0486805634 |title=A Voice From the South |publisher=Dover Publications |year=2016}} * {{cite book |title=Le Pèlerinage de Charlemagne |first1=Anna J |last1=Cooper |author-mask=2 |first2=Eduard |last2=Koschwitz |first3=Félix |last3=Klein |location=Paris |publisher=A. Lahure |year=1925 |oclc=578022221}} *{{cite thesis |degree=Doctoral |last=Cooper |first=Anna J. |author-mask=2 |date=1925 |url=https://dh.howard.edu/ajc_published/25/ |title=L'attitude de la France à l'égard de l'esclavage pendant la révolution |journal=Published Materials by Anna J. Cooper |location=Paris |publisher=Imprimerie de la Cour D'appel |language=fr |via=Howard University}} **{{cite book |last=Cooper |first=Anna Julia |author-mask=2 |editor=Frances Richardson Keller |translator=Keller |title=Slavery and the French revolutionists (1788–1805) |location=Lewiston, New York |publisher=Edwin Mellen Press |year=1988 |isbn=978-0889466371 }} Translation of the author's 1925 doctoral thesis. *{{cite book |editor-last=Lemert |first=Anna Julia |last=Cooper |author-mask=2 |editor-first=Charles |editor-link=Charles Lemert |title=The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including ''A Voice From the South'' and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=1998 |isbn=9780847684083}}

==See also== {{Portal|Saints|United States|Feminism|Biography}} * African-American history * African-American literature * List of African-American writers * List of Alpha Kappa Alpha sisters * List of centenarians * List of people on stamps of the United States * List of feminist rhetoricians

==Notes== {{reflist}}

==Reference bibliography== *{{Citation |last=Belle |first=Kathryn Sophia |title=Anna Julia Cooper |date=April 7, 2025 |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anna-julia-cooper/ |access-date=January 12, 2024 |editor1-last=Zalta |editor1-first=Edward N. |editor2-last=Nodelman |editor2-first=Uri}} *{{Cite book |last=Evans |first=Stephanie Y. |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/book/17450|title=Black Women in the Ivory Tower, 1850–1954: An Intellectual History |year=2008 |publisher=University Press of Florida |isbn=978-0-8130-4520-7}} *{{cite book|last1=Hutchinson|first1=Louise Daniel |author-link=Louise Daniel Hutchinson |title=Anna J. Cooper, A Voice From the South |publisher=Published for the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum of the Smithsonian Institution by the Smithsonian Institution Press |year=1981 |isbn=978-0874745283 |location=Washington |url=https://archive.org/details/annajcoopervoice00hutc}} *{{Citation |last1=Moody-Turner |first1=Shirley |last2=Evans |first2=Sabrina |title=Anna Julia Cooper |work=Oxford Bibliobraphies: American Literature |url=https://oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199827251/obo-9780199827251-0153.xml |date=August 20, 2024 |access-date=January 12, 2026 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/obo/9780199827251-0153 |isbn=978-0-19-982725-1 |url-access=subscription }}

==Further reading==

*{{cite book |author-last=Shockley |author-first=Ann Allen |title=Afro-American Women Writers 1746–1933: An Anthology and Critical Guide |place=New Haven, Connecticut |publisher=Meridian |year=1989 |isbn=978-0452009813 |url=https://archive.org/details/afroamericanwome00shoc}} *{{cite book |contribution=Anna J. Cooper: A Voice for Black Women |title=The Afro-American woman: struggles and images |publisher=Black Classic Press |year=1997 |pages=87–96 |first=Sharon |last=Harley |editor1-first=Sharon |editor1-last=Harley |editor2-first=Rosslyn |editor2-last=Terborg-Penn |quote=First published 1978. |isbn=978-1574780260}} *{{cite book |author-last=Johnson |author-first=Karen A. |title=Uplifting the Women and the Race: The Educational Philosophies and Social Activism of Anna Julia Cooper and Nannie Helen Burroughs |publisher=Routledge |year=2000 |isbn=9780815314776|title-link=Nannie Helen Burroughs }} *{{Cite book|title=The Black Washingtonians: The Anacostia Museum Illustrated Chronology|author=The Smithsonian Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2005 |isbn=978-0471402589|location=Hoboken, New Jersey}} *{{cite book |year=2007 |title=Anna Julia Cooper, Visionary Black Feminist: A Critical Introduction |first=Vivian M. |last=May |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0415956420}} *{{cite book |author-last=Collins |author-first=Patricia Hill |author-link=Patricia Hill Collins |title=Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment |edition=2nd |publisher=Routledge |year=2008 |isbn=9780415964722}} *Special section on Anna Julia Cooper in the Spring 2009 issue of the ''African American Review'': ** {{cite journal |title=Preface: Anna Julia Cooper: A Voice beyond the South |first=Shirley |last=Moody-Turner |journal=African American Review |volume=43 |number=1 |date=Spring 2009 |pages=7–9 |jstor=27802554}} ** {{cite journal |title=Black Feminist Studies: The Case of Anna Julia Cooper |first=Beverly |last=Guy-Sheftall |journal=African American Review |volume=43 |number=1 |date=Spring 2009 |pages=11–15 |jstor=27802555 |doi=10.1353/afa.0.0019 |s2cid=161293124 }} ** {{cite journal |title=Writing the Self into Being: Anna Julia Cooper's Textual Politics |first=Vivian M. |last=May |journal=African American Review |volume=43 |number=1 |date=Spring 2009 |pages=17–34 |jstor=27802556 |doi=10.1353/afa.0.0013 }} ** {{cite journal |title=Gendering Africana Studies: Insights from Anna Julia Cooper |first1=Shirley |last1=Moody-Turner |first2=James |last2=Stewart |journal=African American Review |volume=43 |number=1 |date=Spring 2009 |pages=35–44 |jstor=27802557 |doi=10.1353/afa.0.0008 |s2cid=142631545 }} ** {{cite journal |title='In Service for the Common Good': Anna Julia Cooper and Adult Education |first=Karen A. |last=Johnson |journal=African American Review |volume=43 |number=1 |date=Spring 2009 |pages=45–56 |jstor=27802558 |doi=10.1353/afa.0.0023 |s2cid=142854036 }} ** {{cite journal |title=A Voice beyond the South: Resituating the Locus of Cultural Representation in the Later Writings of Anna Julia Cooper |first=Shirley |last=Moody-Turner |journal=African American Review |volume=43 |number=1 |date=Spring 2009 |pages=57–67 |jstor=27802559 |doi=10.1353/afa.0.0034 |s2cid=161969279 }} * {{cite journal |first=V. Thandi |last=Sulé |title=Intellectual Activism: The Praxis of Dr. Anna Julia Cooper as a Blueprint for Equity-Based Pedagogy |journal=Feminist Teacher |volume=23 |number=3 |year=2013 |pages=211–229 |doi=10.5406/femteacher.23.3.0211|s2cid=145683841 }}

==External links== {{commons category}} {{wikiquote}} * {{wikisource author-inline|Anna Julia Cooper}} *[https://dh.howard.edu/ajcooper/ Anna Julia Cooper] – digitized personal papers held by the Howard University *{{Find a Grave|31252636}}

{{Authority control}}

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