Anna Julia Cooper

Agora

Anna Julia Cooper

1858–1964

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

The progress of a people is measured by the position of its Black women, who face race and gender together and deserve education.

Placement

African & Africana Philosophy · North America · Society & History, Politics & Law, Ethics, Gender & Feminism

Born into slavery in North Carolina, doctorate from the Sorbonne at 66: “A Voice from the South” argues that the progress of a people is measured by the position of its Black women – “when and where I enter”.

Key ideas

“When and where I enter”
Race and gender together
Education as uplift

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Influence

Influenced 4

W. E. B. Du Bois

influenced
Du Bois quoted Cooper’s ‘when and where I enter’ passage, introduced only as ‘one of our women’, in ‘The Damnation of Women’ (Darkwater, 1920). W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Damnation of Women”, in Darkwater (1920); A. J. Cooper, A Voice from the South (1892); V. M. May, Anna Julia Cooper, Visionary Black Feminist (2007)
Evidence: AI draft
W. E. B. Du Bois › 1868–1963
Patricia Hill Collins

influenced
Collins counted Cooper among the founders of Black feminist thought, citing A Voice from the South (1892) on interlocking oppressions of race and gender (Black Feminist Thought, 1990). P. H. Collins, Black Feminist Thought (1990); A. J. Cooper, A Voice from the South (1892); SEP “Anna Julia Cooper”
Evidence: AI draft
Patricia Hill Collins › b. 1948
bell hooks

influenced
In Ain’t I a Woman (1981) hooks drew on Anna Julia Cooper’s A Voice from the South (1892), with Mary Church Terrell, for a tradition of Black women who confronted both the racism of white feminists and the sexism of Black men; the passage has not been checked here. b. hooks, Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (1981); A. J. Cooper, A Voice from the South (1892)
Evidence: AI draft
bell hooks › 1952–2021
Kimberlé Crenshaw

influenced
Crenshaw quoted Cooper’s ‘when and where I enter’ (A Voice from the South, 1892) against leaders who spoke for the race but not for Black women (1989). A. J. Cooper, A Voice from the South (1892); K. Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex”, University of Chicago Legal Forum (1989); V. M. May, Anna Julia Cooper, Visionary Black Feminist (2007)
Evidence: AI draft
Kimberlé Crenshaw › b. 1959

Criticism

Criticizes 1

Alexander Crummell

criticised
Cooper took up Crummell’s address “The Black Woman of the South” (1883) in A Voice from the South (1892), challenged some of its claims and insisted on Black women speaking for themselves. A. J. Cooper, A Voice from the South (1892), “Womanhood a Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress of a Race”; SEP “Anna Julia Cooper” (K. S. Belle)
Evidence: AI draft
Alexander Crummell › 1819–1898

Works

1892A Voice from the South
Essays by “a Black Woman of the South”: only when the Black woman enters, unforced and undegraded, does the whole race enter with her.

Position

“A Voice from the South” (1892) is often regarded as the first book-length statement of what would later be called Black feminism. Cooper argues that the condition of Black women is the measure of the race’s progress: only the Black woman can say “when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood … then and there the whole Negro race enters with me.” She criticises Black male leaders for ignoring women, white feminists for ignoring race, and American Christianity for its complicity with both. Cooper is now read as an early theorist of the intersection of race and gender, and Patricia Hill Collins cites her as a founder.

Life & context

Anna Julia Cooper (1858–1964) was born into slavery in Raleigh, North Carolina. She studied at Oberlin College, taught Latin and mathematics in Washington, D.C., and was principal of the M Street High School, the leading Black secondary school in the country, until she was dismissed for insisting on a college-preparatory curriculum. In 1925, at sixty-six, she received a doctorate from the Sorbonne. She died at 105.