Every time you travel to a different country and use your passport, remember you are carrying a quote from Anna Julia Cooper. Her words are the only words represented in the U.S. passport from an African American woman.
Dr. Anna Julia Haywood Cooper was born August 10th, 1858, and was an African American “author, educator, sociologist, speaker, Black liberation activist and one of the most prominent African American scholars in United States history.”
Born in Raleigh, Dr. Cooper was the youngest child of Hannah Stanley Haywood. She attended St. Augustine’s Normal School in 1868 where she received scholarships and tutored students to help pay for the cost of attendance. Upon graduation, she attended Oberlin College in Ohio, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in 1884 and a master’s degree in 1887 in mathematics. She taught at Wilberforce University and St. Augustine’s and moved to Washington D.C. in 1887 where she taught at Washington Colored High School. Because she was African American and a woman, Dr. Cooper faced fierce discrimination. The injustice and challenges she faced ignited her to fight for both racial and gender justice.
A result of being a fierce fighter who advocated for the rights of African Americans and women to be educated, Dr. Cooper published her first book, A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of the South. This was a controversial book which received national attention, because it called for equal education for women and proclaimed that it was necessary for the advancement of the Black race. This book is deemed as one of the first writings of Black Feminism.
As noted by Columbia University in the City of New York, “Cooper also established and co-founded several organizations to promote black civil rights causes. She helped found the Colored Women’s League in 1892, and she joined the executive committee of the first Pan-African Conference in 1900... and she created “colored” branches of the YMCA and YWCA to provide support for young black migrants moving from the South into Washington, D.C.”
At the age of 67 years old, Dr. Cooper earned her doctoral degree in philosophy from the University of Paris. In 1925, Dr. Cooper was the 4th African American woman to earn that distinction. “In 1930, Cooper retired from teaching to assume the presidency of Frelinghuysen University, a school for black adults. She served as the school’s registrar after it was reorganized into the Frelinghuysen Group of Schools for Colored People. Cooper remained in that position until the school closed in 1950.”
Dr. Cooper died at the age of 105 years old. She is buried in Raleigh. An historical marker was erected at her grave site in honor of her life.
Sources:
Davis, Sarajanee (2020), Cooper, Anna Julia: The World Needs to Hear Her Voice, NCPEDIA