"Fanny Jackson Coppin"[October 15,1837-January 21,1913]

Was an African-American educator and missionary.Born an American slave.Fanny freedom was

purchased by her aunt at age 12.Fanny spent the rest of her youth as a servant for author George Henry Calvert,studying at every opportunity.In 1860,she enrolled in Oberlin College  in Ohio,the first college in the United States to accept both black and female students.During her years as a student at Oberlin College,she taught and evening course for free African Americans in reading and writing,and she graduated with a Bachelor's degree in 1865.That same year,she accepted a position at Philadelphia's Institute for Colored Youth (now Cheney University of Pennsylvania).Fanny served as the Principal of the Ladies Department and taught Greek,Latin,and Mathematics.In 1869,Fanny was appointed as the principal of the Institute after departure of Ebenezer  Bassett,becoming the first African American woman to become a school Principal,she was promoted by the board of education to superintendent.Fanny was the the first African American superintendent of a school district in the United States,but soon went back to being a school principal.On December 21, 1881,she married Rev.Levi Jenkins Coppin,a minister of the African Methodists Episcopal Church pastor of the Bethel AME church Baltimore.She started to become involved with her husband's missionary school with self-help programs.After almost a decade of missionary work,Fanny declining health forced her to return to Philadelphia.In 1926,a Baltimore teaching training school named the Fanny Jackson Coppin Norma School.(now Coppin State University).