Anna Julia Cooper

In 1877, while teaching at the school, she married an older teacher, George C. Cooper, and left her job because of the social obligations of the time. Unfortunately her husband died after two years. Later she returned to teaching and spent the rest of her life as a widow.

She died of a heart attack on February 27, 1964, in Washington, D.C., at the age of 105. She was buried next to her husband at the City Cemetery in Raleigh.

She was born on August 10, 1858 in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA to Hannah Stanley Haywood, a slave in the home of George Washington Haywood, a landowner. George is believed to be the father of all the seven daughters of Stanley, including Anna.

In 1868, at the age of ten, she earned a scholarship to a new school, the St. Augustine’s Normal School and Collegiate Institute, founded to educate and train teachers for newly liberated slaves.

In 1881, she left St. Augustine's and began her undergraduate studies at Oberlin College on a tuition scholarship, having already achieved distinction in both liberal arts and mathematics. In 1884, she completed her BA and became one of the first African American women to do so.

After graduation, she taught for a short period at Wilberforce University in Ohio, and then for one year at her alma mater, St. Augustine. Then she attended the Oberlin College and earned a Master of Science degree in mathematics in 1887.

In 1887, she received an offer to become a faculty member at what was then called the Washington Colored High School (later known as the M Street School). During this period in Washington, she began writing and publishing the work that would earn her scholarly distinction and renown.

In 1892, she published her best known book ‘A Voice from the South: By A Woman from the South’ which is considered to be one of the first articulations of Black feminism. It was her only published work, although she delivered many speeches calling for civil rights and woman's rights.

In 1902, she was appointed the principal of the school. She felt strongly that all students, regardless of race or gender should be provided proper college education and not just vocational training. But she was asked to discontinue her non-vocational approach to which she refused, and was thus forced to resign as principal.

In 1892, her best known work, ‘A Voice from the South: by a Black Woman of the South’, was published. A collection of essays emphasizing the nature and role of African American women, the book is widely considered to be the first black feminist tract.