Abstract

Out of deep educational disagreements that tore black communities asunder in the nineteenth century, an African American woman offered solutions. Anna Julia Cooper pioneered one of the most significant innovations ever introduced in any society. She envisioned and brought into being a system we know as community college. She championed and modeled the idea that higher education is a lifelong experience, that it can be available for everyone, and that everyone can work as she or he learns. Distressed by the "old, subjective, stagnant, indolent and wretched life" of far too many women, Anna Cooper demonstrated that women, as well as men, can escape ignorance and poverty. In her community she discovered, built, and nurtured a working-adult college; she believed that students need no longer feel thwarted in their life possibilities, that they could learn as they worked. As Booker Washington spoke for industrial education, W.E.B. Du Bois for elite opportunity, and Charles Chesnutt for the vote to achieve both, Anna Cooper offered higher education, vocational education, and lifelong education--and women's inclusion in them all--as the road to equal opportunity.

Share