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"Not The Boys Less, but the Girls More" The Work of an African American Intellectual

(COOPER, Anna Julia).  A VOICE FROM THE SOUTH. BY A BLACK WOMAN FROM THE SOUTH. Xenia, OH: The Aldine Printing House, 1892. First edition. 304 pp. 8vo., two-toned brown cloth with gilt spine and cover lettering. T.e.g. Good, light soil to cloth, spine slightly rolled. Corners and spine shelfworn, with 1/4 inch chip to spine near title. Monochrome blue toned frontispiece portrait has light soil in margin, not affecting image. Text is age-toned but in good condition. Anna Julia Cooper was born the daughter of a slave woman, Hannah Stanley, and her master, George Washington Haywood of Raleigh, [N.C.] on August 10, 1858. Hired out as a nurse-maid for Charles Busbee (later a successful lawyer), Hannah named the infant girl for Charles's Mother. No one in Anna's immediate family was literate, so probably it was in the Busbee home that Anna developed her love of books and learning. Cooper touchingly honored her mother by naming one small department of the struggling institution - "The Hannah Stanley Opportunity School". Of her father, Cooper wrote that beyond the act of procreation she owned him nothing". During Cooper's life, she earned an A.B. in 1884 and an M.A. (1887) from Oberlin College. At the age of 66, she received her Ph.D. from the Sorbonne - to become the fourth African American to earn a degree. Cooper was the second Black female principal in the history of the famous M. Street School in Washington, D.C.

In A Voice from the South (1892), Cooper engages a variety of issues ranging from women's rights to racial progress, from segregation to literary criticism. The first half of her book concentrates largely on the education of African American women. Women, Cooper argues, are essential to "the regeneration and progress of a race." Accordingly, women should be brought fully into the education process. In the second half of this book, Cooper discusses a number of authors and their representations of African Americans. Among others, she discusses Harriet Beecher Stowe, Albion Tourgée, George Washington Cable, William Dean Howells, and Maurice Thompson. Cooper reaches the conclusion that an accurate depiction of African Americans has yet to be written, and she calls for an African American author to take up this challenge: "What I hope to see before I die is a black man honestly and appreciatively portraying both the Negro as he is, and the white man, occasionally, as seen from the Negro's standpoint." Cooper discusses the African American role in the economy for the remainder of her book. She views African American poverty as the heritage of slavery, but notes that despite their disadvantaged start and the active opposition to African American economic growth, there has been significant progress in this area. Cooper considers education to be the best investment for African American prosperity. Finally, Cooper argues that individuals should live up to their potential by avoiding the dangers of agnosticism, and they should engage in "the noble work here and now" that helps men prepare for the "existence beyond." Scarce. SOLD
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