A Woman to Know: Anna Julia Cooper
The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or sect, a party or a class — it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity. — Anna Julia
The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or sect, a party or a class — it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity. — Anna Julia
(image via the University of North Carolina)
In 1858, Anna Julia was born a slave in North Carolina. In 1868, she was a freed woman, studying multiple languages at a secondary school in Raleigh. In 1898, she was traveling the country lecturing on race, gender and class oppression.
Her first book, A Voice from the South, is considered one of the founding texts on intersectionality. At the time of its publication, A Voice from the South made the radical proposition that black women held the keys to American future — only in educating and empowering them could America begin to understand the horrors of slavery.
As she wrote:
Only the black woman can say, ‘When and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me.’
Add to your reading list:
A Voice from the South (Anna Julia Cooper)
The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper (Charles Lemert)
Read more:
Remembering Black Feminist, Scholar and Activist Anna Julia Cooper (Ms. Magazine)
Essays by Anna Julia Cooper (Quotidiana)
Anna Julia Cooper, "Woman's Cause is Universal" (Black Past)
The Anna Julia Cooper Center (Wake Forest University)
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