Pinpoint Production: Anna Julia Cooper

Educator, author, and speaker Anna Julia Haywood Cooper (1858-1964) was born into slavery and educated at Saint Augustine's Normal School and Collegiate Institute in Raleigh, North Carolina. While teaching at St. Augustine's, she married George A. C. Cooper, who died two years later. After her husband's death, Cooper moved to Washington, D.C., attended Oberlin College, taught at Wilberforce College and M Street High School, and later went on to earn her Ph.D. from the University of Paris-Sorbonne. Cooper taught Greek, Latin, geometry, and science; and created a path for African Americans to attend Ivy League schools. Although she taught and served as principal (1902-1906) of the M Street High School (now Dunbar High School) in Washington, D.C., her role and influence extended beyond its boundaries. Cooper was an advocate of human rights who lectured on a broad range of topics that affected blacks and women, including race relations, poverty, and gender inequality; a feminist of her day. She was a contributor to the District of Columbia's Colored Settlement House; served as president of Frelinghuysen University, which offered affordable liberal arts and professional courses for working African Americans; and wrote A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of the South, the first book-length volume of black feminist analysis in the United States.