A Life Begun in Slavery, Transformed by Education
Anna Julia Haywood Cooper was born into slavery, the daughter of an enslaved woman, Hannah Stanley Haywood, and likely the white man who enslaved her family. After emancipation, she began her formal education in 1868 at St. Augustine’s Normal School and Collegiate Institute in Raleigh — a school founded to educate formerly enslaved people. Even as a young student, Cooper demonstrated exceptional commitment to learning and justice. She successfully petitioned for access to the same courses as male classmates and began teaching mathematics at the age of ten.
Cooper graduated in 1877 and, after the tragic death of her husband George Cooper two years later, pursued higher education at Oberlin College in Ohio. There she earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1884 and a master’s degree in 1888, making her one of the first African American women in the United States to achieve these academic honors.
From the Classroom to the World Stage
In 1887, Cooper moved to Washington, D.C., to teach at the prestigious M Street High School (later Dunbar High School) — the first public high school for Black students in the nation’s capital. She taught mathematics, science, Latin, and literature and became principal in 1902. Under her leadership, M Street earned a reputation for academic excellence, and many of its graduates went on to attend Ivy League and other top colleges.
However, Cooper’s insistence on a rigorous, college-preparatory curriculum drew resistance from the all-white school board, which wanted vocational training instead. In 1906, she was controversially removed as principal. Yet Cooper continued teaching at the school until her retirement in 1930.
A Voice for Black Women and Human Rights
While Cooper’s work as an educator was transformative, her influence extended far beyond the classroom. In 1892 she published A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South, one of the earliest and most powerful texts in Black feminist thought. In it, she argued that Black women occupy a unique position at the intersection of race and gender oppression — and that their full liberation was essential to the advancement of American democracy. This work remains foundational in studies of race, gender, and social justice.
Cooper’s activism was also practical and organizational. She helped found the Colored Women’s League of Washington, D.C., co-organized national gatherings of Black women activists, and participated in the Pan-African Conference in London in 1900. She created “colored” branches of the YMCA and YWCA to support young Black migrants and worked throughout her life to advance educational and social opportunities for African Americans.
Scholar, Leader, and Legacy
Never one to slow down, Cooper returned to graduate study in her later years. After studying at Columbia University, she enrolled at the University of Paris (Sorbonne) and in 1925, at age 66, became the fourth African American woman in the U.S. to earn a Ph.D. Her doctoral dissertation examined the French Revolution and slavery — a scholarly achievement that added yet another dimension to her remarkable intellectual life.
After retiring from teaching, Cooper served as president and registrar of Frelinghuysen University, a community institution for working adults in Washington, D.C., even offering her own home as a classroom space.
Anna Julia Cooper died on February 27, 1964, at the age of 105 — having lived through the Civil War, Reconstruction, the World Wars, and the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement. Her legacy endures in educational institutions, feminist scholarship, and the continuing fight for racial and gender justice.
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