"Anna Julia Haywood Cooper"(August 10,1858-Februrary 27,1964)W

Was an author,educator,and one one of the most prominent African American scholars in the

United States history.Upon receiving her PhD. in history from the University of Paris-Sorbonne in 1924,Anna became the fourth African American woman to earn a doctoral degree.She was a prominent member of Washington,D.C. African American community.Anna Julia Cooper was born in Raleigh,North Carolina in 1858 to Hannah Stanley Haywood,and enslaved woman in the home of prominent Wake County landowner George Washington Haywood.George is widely believed by historians to be the biological father of Hannah seven daughters.Anna had two older brothers Andrew J. Haygood and Rufus Haygood.In 1968  when she was around nine years old,She received an award to attend school at the newly opened Saint Augustine's Normal School and Collegiate Institute,founded by the local Episcopal Diocese for the purpose of training teachers to educate former slaves and their families.During her fourteen years at St. Augustine's,she distinguished herself as a bright and ambitious student who showed equal dexterity with both liberal arts and analytical disciplines like math and science.During this period,St.Augustine's pedagogical emphasis was on training young men for the ministry,and preparing ambitious men for additional training a four-year universities.The school had a special track reserved for women dubbled the "Ladies' Course" and the administration actively discouraged women from pursuing higher-level courses.Anna fought for her right to take courses such as Greek,which was reserved for men, by demonstrating her scholastic ability.She also worked as pupil-teacher,which allowed her to pay for her educational expenses.After completing her studies,she remained at the institution as an instructor.During years as a teacher and principal at M  Street High School,She completed her first book, A Voice from the South: By A Woman from the South,published in 1892.Perhaps her most well- known volume of writing,A Voice from the South is widely viewed as one of the first articulations of Black feminism.The book advanced a vision of self-determination through education and social uplift for African American women.Its central thesis was the educational moral, and spiritual progress of black women to support would improve the general standing for the entire African American community.Anna advanced the view that it was the duty of educated successful black women to support their underprivileged peers in achieving their goals.The essays in A Voice from the South also touched on a variety of topics, from racism and the socioeconomic  realities of black families to the administration of the Episcopal Church.In 1914 at the age of 56, Anna begin courses for her doctoral degree at Columbia University,but was forced to interrupt her studies in 1915 when she adopted the five children of her late half-brother upon their mother's passing.Lather on she was able to transfer her credits to the University of Paris-Sorbonne,which however did not accept her Columbia thesis, an edition of the Le Pelerinage de Charlemagne.Over the course of a decade she was able to research and compose her dissertation,completing her coursework in 1924. She defended her thesis The Attitude of France on the Question of Slavery Between 1789&1848 in 1925.At the age of sixty-five,Anna became the fourth black woman in American history to earn a Doctorate of Philosophy degree.Although the alumni magazine of her undergraduate alma mater,Oberlin College, praised her in 1924 saying "The class of "84 is honored in the achievement of the scholarly and colored alumna," when she tried to present her edition of Le Pelerinage de Charlemagne to the college the next year,it was rejected.Her memorial was held in a chapel on the St. Augustine's College. She is buried alongsider her husband at the City Cemetery in Raleigh.Page 26&27 of every new United States Passport contain the following quotation: "The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party class-is the cause of humankind,the very birthright of humanity"-Anna Julia Cooper.In 2009 , The United States Postal Service released a commemorative stamp in Cooper's honor.