Anna Julia (Haywood) Cooper (1858 - 1964)

Born 10 Aug 1858 in Raleigh, Wake, North Carolina, United States

Died 27 Feb 1964 at age 105 in Washington, District of Columbia, United States

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Biography

Anna (Haywood) Cooper is Notable.

Anna (Haywood) Cooper was a centenarian, living to age 104.

An American author, educator, sociologist, speaker, Black liberation activist, and one of the most prominent African-American scholars in United States history. She is noted as the first African-American female Superintendent of the DC Colored School System.

Anna "Annie" Julia Haywood was born enslaved on August 10, 1858 in Raleigh, North Carolina. ^[1] She was a daughter of Hannah Stanley Haywood. ^[2] Anna and her mother were held in bondage by George Washington Haywood, the son of John Haywood; John was the mayor of Raleigh and State Treasurer of North Carolina. Either George or his brother, Dr. Fabius Haywood, were probably Anna's father; Anna's mother refused to clarify paternity.

In 1868, when Anna 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 (today called Saint Augustine's University), founded by the local Episcopal diocese for the purpose of training teachers to educate the formerly enslaved and their families. She met her husband George A.C. Cooper while at this school. They married June 1877 in Wake, North Carolina. ^[3] He died two years after they married.

In 1880 census, she was recorded as a teacher in Raleigh, Wake, North Carolina. ^[4] 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.

Anna entered Oberlin College in Ohio, where she continued to follow the course of study designated for men, graduating in 1884. Anna returned to St. Augustine's in 1885. She then went back to Oberlin and earned an M.A. in Mathematics in 1888, making her one of the first two black women to earn a Master's degree.

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.

Anna completed her first book, titled A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South, published in 1892, and delivered many speeches calling for civil rights and women's rights.

In 1893, she delivered a paper titled "The Intellectual Progress of the Colored Women of the United States since the Emancipation Proclamation" at the World's Congress of Representative Women in Chicago. In 1900, she made her first trip to Europe, to participate in the First Pan-African Conference in London, the Paris Exhibition, and then travel through the countryside of England, Scotland, Germany, and Italy.

She moved to Washington, DC. ^[5] Anna began teaching Latin at M Street High School, becoming principal in 1901. 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. As a result of this, she left the school. Later, she was recalled to M Street, and she fit her work on her doctoral thesis into "nooks and crannies of free time" while teaching in D.C. public schools.

In 1914, Anna began courses for her doctoral degree at Columbia University, but was forced to interrupt her studies in 1915 when she adopted her late half-brother's five children upon their mother's death. ^{[6] [7]} Later on she transferred her credits to the University of Paris-Sorbonne, which did not accept her Columbia thesis, an edition of Le Pèlerinage de Charlemagne. Over a decade she researched and composed her dissertation, completing her coursework in 1924. Cooper defended her thesis "The Attitude of France on the Question of Slavery Between 1789 and 1848" in 1925. At 65, Anna became the fourth Black woman in American history to earn a Doctor of Philosophy degree.

Anna’s retirement from Washington Colored High School in 1930 was by no means the end of her political activism. The same year she retired; she accepted the position of president at Frelinghuysen University. Anna worked for Frelinghuysen for twenty years, first as president and then as registrar, until the age of 95.

Anna died on February 27, 1964, at the age of 104 in Washington, District of Columbia, United States. She was buried in City Cemetery in Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina, United States. ^[8]

In 2009, the United States Postal Service released a commemorative stamp in Cooper's honor.

Sources

1. ↑ United States Passport Applications, 1795-1925, Anna Julia Cooper, 1923; citing Passport Application, Washington D C, United States, source certificate #353151, Passport Applications, January 2, 1906 - March 31, 1925, 2391.
2. ↑ United States Census, 1870 Annie Haywood in entry for Andrew Haywood, 1870; Raleigh, Wake, North Carolina, United States.
3. ↑ North Carolina, County Marriages, 1762-1979, George A C Cooper and Annie J Haywood, Jun 1877; citing Wake, North Carolina, United States, p. , North Carolina State Archives Division of Archives and History .
4. ↑ United States Census, 1880, Annie Cooper in household of Laura Pender, Raleigh, Wake, North Carolina, United States; citing enumeration district ED 271, sheet 347D.
5. ↑ United States Census, 1900, Anna J Cooper, Washington city, Washington, District of Columbia, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 45, sheet 15B, family 290.
6. ↑ United States Census, 1920, Anna J Cooper, 1920; Washington, District of Columbia, United States.
7. ↑ United States Census, 1930, Anna J Cooper, Washington, Washington, District of Columbia, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 227, sheet 5A, line 6, family 78.
8. ↑ Find A Grave, memorial page for Dr Anna Julia Haywood Cooper (10 Aug 1858–27 Feb 1964), Find a Grave Memorial ID 31252636, citing City Cemetery, Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina, USA.

• "United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K73W-S7D : 24 May 2020), Anna J Cooper, Tract 34, District of Columbia, Police Precinct 13, District of Columbia, District of Columbia, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 1-515, sheet 6B, line 53, family 91, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940

See also:

• Wikipedia: Anna J. Cooper
• Melissa Harris-Perry, About Anna Jullia Cooper: The Anna Julia Cooper Project on Gender, Race and Politics in the South. Newcomb College Institute.
• Tricia Williams Jacson (2016). "Women in Black History - Stories of Courage, Faith, and Resilience", "Anna Julia Cooper" page 67. Grand Rapids, MI: Published by Revell
• Katherine Shilton, "This Scholarly and Colored Alumna: Anna Julia Cooper's Troubled Relationship with Oberlin College" 2003.