Anna Julia Cooper (1858–1964) was a North Carolina born educator, author, and activist who became one of the most important voices for Black women’s rights and education in U.S. history. Born into enslavement in Raleigh, she went on to study at Oberlin College, later led Washington, D.C.’s renowned M Street High School (today’s Dunbar High School), and wrote A Voice from the South (1892), a groundbreaking book arguing that the freedom and progress of the nation depends on how it treats and educa