Anna Julia Cooper

Anna Julia Cooper was an African American educator, scholar and writer, born into slavery in Raleigh, North Carolina, who became principal of the M Street High School in Washington, D.C., and in 1925 earned a doctorate from the University of Paris. Her book A Voice from the South, published in 1892, is one of the earliest works of Black feminist thought. It argues that Black women have a distinct standpoint, that their progress is the measure of a people's progress, and that they deserve full access to higher education.

Key ideas

• Black women have a distinctive voice and standpoint, shaped by both race and sex, that had gone unheard.
• 'Only the Black woman can say when and where I enter, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me.'
• Women, including Black women, should have access to higher, classical education and not only vocational training.
• Struggles against racism and sexism are connected, and a movement fighting one while ignoring the other is incomplete.
• Progress should be judged by the condition of the most vulnerable members of a society.

Major works

• A Voice from the South (1892)
• L'attitude de la France à l'égard de l'esclavage pendant la Révolution (1925)

In the Book corner

• A Voice from the South 1892 · Intermediate
  A collection of eight essays and speeches by a teacher at the M Street High School in Washington, D.C., published in 1892…

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