The Portable Anna Julia Cooper

by Anna Julia Cooper, Shirley Moody-Turner (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor)

A collection of essential writings from the iconic foremother of Black women’s intellectual history, feminism, and activism, who helped pave the way for modern social justice movements like Black Lives Matter and Say Her Name

A Penguin Classic

The Portable Anna Julia Cooper brings together, for the first time, Anna Julia Cooper’s major collection of essays, A Voice from the South, along with several previously unpublished poems, plays, journalism and selected correspondences, including over thirty previously unpublished letters between Anna Julia Cooper and W. E. B. Du Bois. The Portable Anna Julia Cooper will introduce a new generation of readers to an educator, public intellectual, and community activist whose prescient insights and eloquent prose underlie some of the most important developments in modern American intellectual thought and African American social and political activism.

Recognized as the iconic foremother of Black women’s intellectual history and activism, Cooper (1858-1964) penned one of the most forceful and enduring statements of Black feminist thought to come of out of the nineteenth century. Attention to her work has grown exponentially over the years—her words have been memorialized in the US passport and, in 2009, she was commemorated with a US postal stamp. Cooper’s writings on the centrality of Black girls and women to our larger national discourse has proved especially prescient in this moment of Black Lives Matter, Say Her Name, and the recent protests that have shaken the nation.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Classics, Feminism, History, Politics, Philosophy

592 pages, Paperback

First published August 9, 2022

About the author

Anna Julia Haywood Cooper (Raleigh, August 10, 1858 – February 27, 1964) was an American author, educator, speaker and one of the most prominent African-American scholars in United States history. Upon receiving her PhD in history from the University of Paris-Sorbonne in 1924, Cooper became the fourth African-American woman to earn a doctoral degree. She was also a prominent member of Washington, D.C.'s African-American community.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_J._...

Reviews

[Gisele · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love learning about Anna Julia Cooper's intellect and boldness! She inspires me. I loved reading about what she accomplished. I loved the way in which she wrote her non-fiction and fiction pieces. I highly recommend reading this book.

[Madeline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t want to say the first thing that comes to mind: so little has changed. So many of her points are still salient. And she had to make her arguments in a cage, which is a rhetorical position so many know so well. Cooper is a fantastic writer—page 68, especially for some reason “celestial kernel”—and she pulls in so many rhetorical tropes to make her point. Her intellect and her education and her teaching prowess come through so clearly, especially in A Voice from the South, by a Black Woman of the South.

I could pull-quote so much of this and connect it to Savala Nolan, Caroline Criado-Perez, and so many more.

A master class. I’m so grateful for this book, and its author.