Anna Julia Cooper: from slave to school principal, >
by Johnnie Douthis
Smithsonian News Service
Il isn't what we say about our
selves, i t ’s what our life stands
for.
— Anna J. Coopei
Aug. 10. 1958
She was the first woman from the
D istrict o f C olum bia to earn a
doctorate from the Sorbonne. She
was among the first black women to
earn a bachelor's degree from an
American college. And she became
principal o f the first public high
school for black people in the
United Slates.
Anna Julia Cooper, feminist, hu
man rights advocate, educational re
former and teacher, was born into
slavery as Annie Haywood in
Raleigh, N .C ., about 1858 (her
exact birthdate is unknown).
Hut Cooper's life represented far
more than a resume o f achieve
ments. It illustrated, concludes
Louise
Daniel
Hutchinson,
Cooper’s biographer and historian
at the Smithsonian's Anacostia
Neighborhood Museum in W ash
ington, D .C ., that significant ac
complishments could be made by a
black woman against seemingly in
surmountable odds for blacks late in
the 19th century.
"W h e n we consider,” H utchin
son writes, " th a t s h e ... began her
life under the most adverse circum
stances and at a time when the
mental capacity o f blacks and
women was questioned and dispar
aged, her achievements take on
greater significance.''
Cooper, indeed, has won a large
place o f respect in American history
for steadfastly refusing to bow to
the prevailing view held in the late
1800s that black people should fore
go higher education for work in the
trades and fields— work, this think
ing proceeded, that would help
blacks better themselves and
improve their relations with south
ern whites embittered by post-Civil
War Reconstruction politics.
Fate gave Anna Cooper a very
long life , one that for American
blacks spanned a century of tumul
tuous history— servitude, Civil War,
emancipation, Reconstruction and
the brief hope o f fu ll citizenship,
reaction, segregation and, at last,
the slow movement toward real
equality. Cooper died in the 1960s
as the civil rights movement was
coming to life; yet her life's work
aided that cause. She also was well
ahead o f her time in arguing for
women's rights.
The C iv il W ar was barely three
years over when little Anna, encour
aged by her self-sacrificing mother
(whose child presumably was
lathered by her master. Dr. Fabius
J. Haywood Sr.), went o ff to school
ai Raleigh's new St. Augustine’s
Normal School and Collegiate Insti
tute, established by the Episcopal
C hurch to prepare black teachers to
veloped between the young woman
and her Creek studies teacher, min
istry student Ccorge A .C . Cooper,
and at the close o f the 1877 school
year, they were married. " H e was
probably just the kind o f balance
wheel that this intense young wom
an needed in her life ,” Hutchinson
suggests. But the shared life and
plans thev had made were not to be;
George Cooper died two years later,
on Sept. 27, 1879.
Now 21 and a full-time teacher at
S. Augustine's Cooper in 1881
looked toward the possibility o f
higher education, applying to
O h io ’s Oberlin College, among the
first U .S. schools to admit blacks
and, especially im portant to this
woman, admired for its academic
standards. W ith her characteristic
directness and candor. Cooper
wrote the school’s president asking
to be accepted as a "fre e tu itio n "
A slaveowner could be whipped or jailed if caught teaching his
slaves to read and write. In some southern states, that slave could be
killed. Those who knew how to read surreptitiously taught other
slaves their skill.
instruct black youth. Bright and
precocious, Anna served as a tutor
■it the school, where she received a
'inall stipend to pay for board and
tuition, but as she would later recall,
"a fte r a while I had a great deal of
lime on my hands. I had devoured
what was put before me, and . was
looking for more."
In that quest, Anna developed a
courageous side that would serve
her well in her professional life.
Cieneralions before it was in vogue,
she fought against sexism at St. Au
gustine's confronting the issue as
she tried to enroll in a Creek class.
Told the class was for males only,
she fought back, won a victory—
and a scat in class.
Ironically, a close friendship de
student. "Southern schools pay very
m eanly," she declared, but " I ex
pect to have money enough to keep
me one or two years at college___ ”
Managing, resourcefully, to com
plete a classical curriculum at Ober
lin in 1884, Cooper soon found
another chance to take a stand
against sexism. She had been prom
ised a professorship by the president
of St. Augustine’s but that commit
ment was ignored by his successor,
who instead offered Cooper the po
sition o f "teacher in charge o f
girls.” She refused, then headed for
Wilberforce College, a black church
school in Xenia, Ohio, to chair the
science and modren language de
partment*.
Feminist, human right* advocate, educational reformer and teacher, Anna Julia Cooper
(C. 1858-1964) led a remarkable life. Born into slavery, she wasamong the first black women
to earn a bachelor's degree from an American college, letter, she earned a doctorate from the
Sorbonne in Paris. In 1925, she wrote: "My one aim is and has always been, so far as I may, to
hold a torch for the children of a group too long exploited and too frequently disparaged in
its struggling for the light."
Builder of First American Clock &
Surveyor of Nation’s Capitol
Benjamin
Banneker
The diversity of this person's genius is told in the titles dbove
Benjamin Banneker — you would think would be a name
known by school children and adults alike Vet who has ever
heard of his achievements?
Not only was he the first Black to engage in clock-making in
the American colonies (his life spanned 75 yeats from 1731 to
1806) but he also was a noted astronomer, mathematician
and linguist
His mechanical inventiveness led him in 1761 to construct a
wooden 'striking' clock It was the first clock made in America
and was so accurate that it kept perfect time and struck each
hour unfailingly for more than 20 years
Vet Banneker performed an even more astounding feat for the
young America he helped found HE LAID OUT THE ENURE
SURVEY OF WASHINGTON. D C BY MEMORY
Banneker was a surveyor on a six-person team that helped lay
out the blueprint for the city When the chair of the committee.
Major L’Enfant. abruptly resigned and returned to Paris with his
plans, Banneker — using his precise memory — reproduced the
plans in their entirety1
Tfektronix
COMMITTED TO EXCELLENCE
P a g e 8. Section II. Portland Observer. February 20. 1985
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