All Praises to MAAFA SF Bay Area Organization Ancestors: Sister Makinya, Sister Hadiah, Sister Omitola Toluwalase Akinwunmi; Brother Tahuti; Min. Lezell Williams; Sister Hadiah McCleod; Brotha Clint; Minister Imhotep Alkebulan.
We honor Anna Julia Cooper, Ph.D., this year. She was a 19th Century educator, school principal in Washington D.C. and the fourth African American woman in this country to earn a doctorate in 1924. She was 65. Her dissertation at the University of Paris-Sorbonne was written in French and focused on attitudes toward slavery after the Haitian Rebellion (Bates 2015 qtd. in Dawson (womenshistory.org).
She was also born enslaved. So much of her scholarship was lost, because women’s scholarship was and is not valued. A contemporary of W.E.B. Dubois, he took Cooper’s ideas and did not credit her nor did he assist her in getting her work accepted. In an essay, “Anna Julia Cooper on Slavery’s Afterlife: Can International Thought ‘Hear’ Her ‘Muffled’ Voice and Ideas?, published in Toward a History of Women’s International Thought, (2021), eds. Patricia Owens and Katharina Rietzler, the author, Vivian M. May, explores Cooper’s thoughts on post-traumatic slave syndrome as she also shows how Cooper had to struggle even into her 100th year to get a publisher for a project.
Yet, Cooper accomplished a lot, despite her unfavorable reception here and abroad. She is credited with publishing the first work querying “intersectionality,” as a thing. She states that Black women are not fragmented rather holistic so when one measures such a life all its experiences have to be considered to do her justice. She says, “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.” In other words, I bring all of myself with me.
I visited Cooper’s house when I was in Washington last year in the fall and the school where she taught, not named after her, rather Frederick Douglass. Just down the street from her home lived another powerful woman, Mary Church Terrell. I was so excited to step on Cooper’s porch where she probably entertained and her nieces and nephews played. Too bad her home is now a private residence. The street where her house sits is named after her and there is a park there too in the cul-de-sac. I was so excited to share physical space with this ancestor. It is beyond words how it feels to be in a space, to touch the earth, buildings walls and other surfaces an ancestor walked on too, cooked food on too, rested there too. Cooper’s famous book is A Voice from the South, by a Black Woman of the South. For more on Cooper’s life visit https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/cooper-a-voice-from-the-south.htm
I’d like to read the article and discuss Dr. Cooper’s life and her extraordinary work despite the challenges she faced as a Black woman, widowed, raising her brother’s children and refusing to be bowed by sexist, racist, biased and dangerous circumstances for a free educated independent Black woman in America.
Questionnaire
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MAAFA SF Bay Area needs a person with fundraising skills, technical support-- web design, outreach; a liaison, assistant to the CEO, audience development, researcher, publisher, a vehicle--car, van, camper, property-- live work, commercial, a gallery.
You can also record a message here: 510-397-9705
1) How many Maafa Commemoration Rituals and other programs have you attended?
2) Why did you come?
3) List 3-4 elements which were most meaningful to you and why
4) Will you return and bring others next year?
5) How would you like to be involved in Maafa-related activities during Maafa Awareness Month (October) and throughout the year? What expertise or skills would you like to share?
6) Profession/Skills
7) Anything else?
Return Questionnaire to: maafasfbayarea.com@gmail.com
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