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A J Cooper Biography & Facts

Anna Julia Cooper (née Haywood; August 10, 1858 – February 27, 1964) was an American author, educator, sociologist, speaker, Black liberation activist, Black feminist leader, and one of the most prominent African-American scholars in United States history. Born into slavery in 1858, Cooper received a world-class education, which enabled her to claim power and prestige in academic and social circles. In 1924, she received her PhD from the Sorbonne, University of Paris. Cooper became the fourth African-American woman to earn a doctoral degree. She was also a prominent member of Washington, D.C.'s African-American community, and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Cooper made contributions to social science fields, particularly in sociology. Her first book, A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South, is widely acknowledged as one of the first articulations of Black feminism, giving Cooper the often-used title of "the Mother of Black Feminism". Biography Childhood Anna "Annie" Julia Haywood was born into slavery in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1858. She and her mother, Hannah Stanley Haywood, were enslaved by George Washington Haywood (1802–1890), one of the sons of North Carolina's longest-serving state Treasurer John Haywood, who helped found the University of North Carolina, but whose estate later was forced to repay missing funds. Either George, who enslaved her mother, or his brother, Dr. Fabius Haywood, who enslaved her older brother, Andrew, 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.Cooper worked as a domestic servant in the Haywood home and she had two older brothers, Andrew J. Haywood and Rufus Haywood. 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. 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, 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. 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." 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. 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.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." 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.After her husband's death, Cooper entered Oberlin College in Ohio, where she continued to follow the study designated for men, graduating in 1884. Given her academic qualifications, she was admitted as a sophomore. 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. Among her classmates were fellow black women Ida Gibbs (later Hunt) and Mary Church Terrell. 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". After teaching briefly at Wilberforce College, 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. In 1890–91 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.: 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.: 144 In 1900, she made her first trip to Europe to participate in the First Pan-African Conference in London. 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." Washington DC years She later moved to Washington, DC. In 1892, Anna 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. Helen Cook was elected president.Cooper would develop a close friendship with Charlotte Forten Grimké – Cooper began as a tenured teacher, teaching Latin, math and science at M Street High School, becoming principal in 1901 or 1902. 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. This approach to the education of blac.... Discover the A J Cooper popular books. Find the top 100 most popular A J Cooper books.