Born: August 10, 1858, Raleigh, NC

Education: St. Augustine's Normal School, 1867–77; Oberlin College, A.B., 1884, M.A., 1887; Université de Paris (Sorbonne), Ph.D., 1925

Died: February 27, 1964, Washington, DC

Born in slavery, Cooper became one of the first post-emancipation college graduates and a leading race, women's rights, and education activist.

During the Nadir (1877–1901), as blacks debated the mission of and curricula in black schools, training hands versus minds, she campaigned for a curriculum of English, Latin, arithmetic, history, and few vocational courses. In short, she pursued literacy and higher learning for all regardless of class or gender, urging the inclusion of females. She also urged the “education of neglected people,” creating her night and prep school and community college models to reach them.

Cooper faced and resisted Jim Crow, including its ideologies of white supremacy and black inferiority. She defended and demonstrated the capacity of blacks, “just twenty-one years removed from the conception and experience of a chattel” (Cooper, 2000, p. 61), to learn, achieve progress, and live as equal citizens. Black equality turned crucially on educating black women. “Let our girls feel that we expect something more of them than that they merely look pretty and appear well in society,” she declared. “Teach them that there is a race with special needs that they and only they can help.” Their role in freedom was indispensable.