Anna Julia Cooper

„Let our girls know that we expect something more of them than that they merely look pretty and appear well in society… not the boys less but the girls more.”

The impressive life of Dr. Anna Julia Cooper who would become an author, activist, and educator, began on August 10, 1858, when she was born as Anna Julia Haywood in Raleigh, North Carolina. Born into slavery as the youngest child of her enslaved mother Hannah Stanley Haywood, she continuously expressed her lifelong gratitude to her mother. At the same time, she denied any indebtedness to her white father, presumably her mother’s enslaver, a tragic relationship not uncommon in the Southern States at that time.¹⁾

Anna was born just three years before the outbreak of the Civil War, at a time when the 1831 Act prohibited the teaching of literacy to enslaved people in North Carolina in order to prevent rebellion and emancipation. She was able to enroll at the age of ten in the newly established St. Augustine’s Normal School and Collegiate Institute alongside formerly enslaved persons of all ages following the Union Victory in 1865.²⁾ It is therefore not surprising that according to the Wake County Census of 1870, 12-year-old Anna was the only literate member of her maternal family.³⁾

Following the emancipation of formerly enslaved persons, schools had to provide primary education to a vast number of people who had little to no prior access to education before. This led to a severe shortage of teachers. Anna, who had quickly proved her learning abilities, began to work as a tutor for older students at the age of ten to fund her tuition.⁴⁾

It was during her time at St. Augustine’s, that Anna first formed feminist ideas due to the inferior treatment she witnessed girls and women receive in the educational enterprise. In her book “A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South” she describes how she struggled to be allowed and afford to attend the newly formed Greek class at her school alongside male theology students:

“A boy, however meager his equipment and shallow his pretentions, had only to declare a floating interest to study theology and he could get all the support, encouragement, and stimulus he needed, be absolved from work and invested beforehand with all the dignity of his far away office. While a self-supporting girl had to struggle on by teaching in the summer and working after school hours to keep up with her board bills […] and I ask the men and women who are teachers and co-workers for the highest interests of the race that they give the girls a chance! […] let money be raised and scholarships be founded in our colleges and universities for self-supporting, worthy young women, to offset and balance the aid that can always be found for boys who will take theology.”⁵⁾

It was at St. Augustine’s, that Anna met her husband George A. C. Cooper, a then thirty-year-old fellow theology student, whom she married in 1877.⁶⁾ He died merely two years later when Anna was 21 years old.⁷⁾

Following his death, Anna went on to attend Oberlin College in 1881, which had been the first college to accept both men and women when it was founded in 1833 and Black people in the following year.⁸⁾ Anna attended Oberlin on a scholarship and lived with her mentor Professor Charles Henry Churchill, a founder of the Oberlin’s Physics Department and influential figure on campus. She lived with the Churchill’s as a member of the family during her undergraduate studies at Oberlin and remained a lifelong friend of the family.⁹⁾ At Oberlin, Anna earned a B.A. in mathematics in 1884 followed by her M.A. in mathematics in 1887.¹⁰⁾

Anna went on to become a teacher at the Washington Colored High School (later M Street School) – the only Black high school in Washington, D.C. at the time. Eventually, she became principal of the school but was forced to resign following a feud with the all-white, all-male school board of the district. The board did not agree with her focus on college preparation. They rather wanted Black children to receive vocational training which she did not look down upon but criticized as them disproportionally pushing Black children to work with their hands.¹¹⁾ From 1906 to 1910, she held a post as a lecturer at Lincoln University, before returning to M Street School following a summoning of the new super-intendant of the school.¹²⁾

In spite of her time-consuming job and community activism, Anna always found the time to continue her academic career. She took the time to write, to attend conferences such as the inaugural Pan-African Congress in London in 1900 as a speaker¹³⁾ or continued to expand her education by studying. She attended La Guilde Internationale in Paris in the summers of 1911 to 1913, Columbia University in New York in the summer of 1914 to 1917 and – finally – finished her Ph.D. studies at the Sorbonne University in Paris in 1925.¹⁴⁾

Anna published her first book “A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South” which contained a collection of eight essays, in 1892. In these essays, she analyzes the overlap between gender, race, and class and how it impacts individuals, making “A Voice from the South” one of the first lengthy articulations of Black feminism and intersectionality. She depicts this crossroad by portraying the lives of Black people in the United States, focusing on the experiences of Black women whilst demonstrating how patriarchy and white supremacy in the era of Jim Crow interconnected in her personal life.¹⁵⁾ “A Voice from the South” not only critiques but also expresses the means that Anna considers appropriate to emancipate the voiceless, to regain their voice in society, demanding an inclusive framework of liberation and human rights for all.¹⁶⁾ It gained national recognition and was claimed the best book written about Black people by a Black woman at the time.¹⁷⁾ The silencing of Black women and other people of color in discussions about human rights that Anna criticizes (especially in terms of representation and analysis) can still be found in today’s international and human rights law.¹⁸⁾

Over the course of her life, numerous publications and speeches she held as a community activist followed, including “The Needs and the Status of Black Women” in 1893, “The Social Settlement: What It Is, and What It Does” in 1913 and “Legislative Measures Concerning Slavery in the United States: 1787 – 1850” in 1942.¹⁹⁾

Anna’s work and ideals – which are, for the most part, considered common ground today – are impressive, given their historical context. She developed and confidently stood by her ideas during the nadir of American race relations, when especially white men were confronted by the – as they perceived it – weakening of their status and resented Black people for it.²⁰⁾ The vague hope for interracial collaboration vanished while antidiscrimination laws became worthless, and legal white supremacy replaced slavery.²¹⁾

Despite this hostile climate, Anna dared to question dominant ideas about the democratic social contract and white superiority in the States. She contested that the prevailing discrimination in the country was socially constructed as well as institutionalized and anything but natural.²²⁾

In line with Anna’s characteristic intersectional approach, she recognized and pointed out the power and responsibility of privileged women to end degradation of and help to uplift women who did not share the same privileges, particularly Black and poor women. In doing so, she criticized the “blindness” of white women, who portrayed their situation as a universal experience, blending out the different situation and needs of women less privileged than them – an issue of continued relevance. Whilst attempting to include all women, it is important to note, that Anna herself was not perfect in this regard; she has been criticized for giving short shrift to lesbian women.²³⁾

One of Anna’s finest works is said to be her dissertation titled “L’Attitude de la France à l’égard de l’esclavage pendant la Révolution” at the Sorbonne University of Paris, for which she earned her Ph.D. in 1925 at the age of 66.²⁴⁾Despite having had to overcome personal hurdles after her brother died and she had to take in his children, which delayed her doctoral studies, she was the fourth (known) Black female Ph.D. and the first African American woman to obtain a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne.²⁵⁾ Her dissertation provides a cross-cultural analysis of the Haitian and French revolutions and examines early capitalism’s dependance on slavery.²⁶⁾Anna demonstrated, how the resistance from Haitian people of color affected France’s natal democracy. She argues that an economic dependance on slavery accompanied by an inability to face France’s colonial expansion compromised its revolutionary potential as well as its egalitarian ideals. She goes on to demand diversity in politics, which she claims to play a critical role in the differentiation between democratic and repressive societies.²⁷⁾

Anna never stopped her work as an intersectional feminist activist and continued to write and work far into her nineties before she died in 1964 at the age of 107.²⁸⁾

Further Readings

• “Black Feminist Studies: The Case of Anna Julia Cooper” by Beverly Guy-Sheftall, in the African American Review, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Spring 2009) pp. 11 – 15.
• “Anna Julia Cooper, Visionary Black Feminist: A Critical Introduction” by Vivian M. May, Taylor & Francis Group 2012.
• “Anna Julia Cooper: Standing at the Intersection of History and Hope” by Shannon L. Eickhoff, in Educational Considerations, Vol. 47, No. 2, 2021.
• “From Slavery to the Sorbonne and Beyond: The Life and Writings of Anna J. Cooper” by Leona C. Gabel, Smith College Studies in History, Vol. XLIX, Northampton Massachusetts Department of History of Smith College, 1982.

Further Sources

• The Anna Julia Cooper Collection: https://dh.howard.edu/ajcooper/
• “A Voice from the South: by a Black Woman of the South”, electronic edition: https://docsouth.unc.edu/church/cooper/cooper.html
• Collection of videos about Dr. Anna Julia Cooper: https://ajccenter.com/learn-more-about-anna