North Carolinian slave

Her beloved mother. Slave.

Her rejected father. Their owner,

A plantation master who disowned her.

 

An exceptional level of intelligence shown, 

A yearning passion for learning grown.

Whilst outside, the barbarity of the Civil War brought 

not only bloodshed but, the emancipation sought. 

For Anna, a God-sent opportunity

An escape from this slavish community.

She dreamed of educating

other freed souls, then integrating

them into a shared society, 

No longer to be a master’s property.

 

St. Augustine's school provided

the chance. Teacher-to-student guided.

Only men received a classical education

Her pursuit of knowledge, fraught with frustration. 

Women were relegated to domestic roles. 

For they were the weaker sex, inferior souls

However, she defied the norms of convention.

Demanded to be considered, be in contention  

She enrolled in those courses men favoured. 

Outperforming, whilst judgemental men wavered.

Anna studied English literature, Latin, Greek and French

Even mathematics and science for her were no wrench

 

Anna blossomed academically 

And also it seems, socially. 

Meeting the Rev. George Cooper,  

She then aged eighteen, and he, her suitor 

A thirty-year-old freed Bahamian slave, 

But soon after marriage, he went to his grave. 

Anna Julia Cooper never remarried.

Once, George’s body was reverently buried.

 

In the early eighteen-eighties, Anna graduated.  

Determined that those black women, now liberated,

Could be taught by her to succeed,

There was a need, and everybody agreed.

She attained her bachelor's degree in mathematics,

Her determination and grit were emblematic

of the desire to escape the stigma of youth, 

show how she had grown, ex-slave deemed uncouth.

Finally, a Master's degree attained

Her impoverished childhood, emotionally unchained.

In Nineteen hundred she spoke of racial tolerance

At the inaugural London, Pan African conference.

 

Homeward to a teaching position in Washington, D.C.

Considered a distinguished educator for those newly free,

high academic standards, her considered reputation,

Becoming the Principal through her diligence and application.

Unwilling to give up on her lifelong learning,

Aged sixty-seven with a desire still burning,

She travelled to Paris, Sorbonne University, 

Gaining, despite prejudice, a History PhD.

All this was achieved while she was also building,

A life for five adopted and two fostered children.

 

Anna lived until she was one hundred and five, 

Lived a long life so that others may thrive,

Book ended by the Civil War and the civil fight,

a staunch advocate for black and women's rights,

She once said, “The dominant forces of our country, in truth

are not yet tolerant of the higher steps for our coloured youth.”

 

On pages twenty-four to twenty-five of a US passport,

Is, possibly, her most famous quotation in short.

 

 "The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class – 

it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity."

 

Anna Julia Haywood 1858-1964