Howdy Everyone! I wanted to share this amazing art by Anna Cooper (Champion Comics) of all of our characters in the Actual Play, The Written and the Lost! (P.s. these will also be available to buy as post cards later)

𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗔 𝗝𝗨𝗟𝗜𝗔 𝗛𝗔𝗬𝗪𝗢𝗢𝗗 𝗖𝗢𝗢𝗣𝗘𝗥 (1858-1964)

Anna Julia Haywood Cooper was a writer, teacher, and activist who championed education for African Americans and women. Born into bôndage in 1858 in Raleigh, North Carolina, she was the daughter of an enslaved woman, Hannah Stanley, and her owner, George Washington Haywood.

In 1867, two years after the end of the Civil Wàr, Anna began her formal education at Saint Augustine’s Normal School and Collegiate Institute, a coeducational facility built for former slàves. There she received the equivalent of a high school education.

Anna Haywood married George A.G. Cooper, a teacher of theology at Saint Augustine’s, in 1877. When her husband died in 1879, Cooper decided to pursue a college degree. She attended Oberlin College in Ohio on a tuition scholarship, earning a BA in 1884 and a Masters in Mathematics in 1887. After graduation Cooper worked at Wilberforce University and Saint Augustine’s before moving to Washington, D.C. to teach at Washington Colored High School. She met another teacher, Mary Church (Terrell), who, along with Cooper, boarded at the home of Alexander Crummell, a prominent clergyman, intellectual, and proponent of African American emigration to Liberia.

Cooper published her first book, A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of the South, in 1892. In addition to calling for equal education for women, A Voice from the South advanced Cooper’s assertion that educated African American women were necessary for uplifting the entire black race. The book of essays gained national attention, and Cooper began lecturing across the country on topics such as education, civil rights, and the status of black women. In 1902, Cooper began a controversial stint as principal of M Street High School (formerly Washington Colored High). The white Washington, D.C. school board disagreed with her educational approach for black students, which focused on college preparation, and she resigned in 1906.

In addition to working to advance African American educational opportunities, Cooper also established and co-founded several organizations to promote black civil rights causes. She helped found the Colored Women’s League in 1892, and she joined the executive committee of the first Pan-African Conference in 1900. Since the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) and the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) did not accept African American members, she created “colored” branches to provide support for young black migrants moving from the South into Washington, D.C.

Cooper resumed graduate study in 1911 at Columbia University in New York City, New York. After the death of her brother in 1915, however, she postponed pursuing her doctorate in order to raise his five grandchildren. She returned to school in 1924 when she enrolled at the University of Paris in France. In 1925, at the age of 67, Cooper became the fourth African American woman to obtain a Doctorate of Philosophy.

In 1930, Cooper retired from teaching to assume the presidency of Frelinghuysen University, a school for black adults. She served as the school’s registrar after it was reorganized into the Frelinghuysen Group of Schools for Colored People. Cooper remained in that position until the school closed in the 1950s.

Anna Julia Haywood Cooper (August 10, 1858 – February 27, 1964) was an American author, educator, sociologist, speaker, Black liberation activist, and one of the most prominent African-American scholars in United States history.

Born into slavery in 1858, Cooper went on to receive a world-class education and claim power and prestige in academic and social circles. Upon receiving her PhD in history from the Sorbonne in 1924, Cooper became the fourth African-American woman to earn a doctoral degree. She was also a prominent member of Washington, D.C.'s African-American community and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

Howdy Everyone, we had an amazing time at Tremendicon this year. The people were spectacular, the con was wonderful, there such amazing stuff to find!

For our first time we had stuff for sale. We had amazing art done by Anna and Mirian Cooper at Champion Comics, we had CDs for Records of the Unknown and House on Valley Lane! Unfortunately we can't currently get these in hands outside of cons.

And we had Shirts! These were designed by Olivia and by Lance Sawyer! We are so happy with them. Especially because these are available online! Our friends over at ThreadsCollab have them available for all at https://thethreadscollab.com/collections/atomic-broadcasting.

On February 27, 1964, black feminist activist, scholar and educator Anna Julia Haywood Cooper died at the age of 105.

[pictured: Image from Smithsonian Institute]

Born into slavery in 1858 in Raleigh, Cooper graduated from St. Augustine’s Normal School and then earned a B.A. and an M.A. in mathematics from Oberlin College in Ohio.  She taught for a few years in Raleigh before moving to Washington, D.C., to teach there.

In 1892, she published A Voice from the South, one of the first comprehensive statements of black feminism.  Her analysis of racism, sexism and subjugation of black women would echo into the black feminist movements of the 20th century.

Cooper devoted her life to the advancement of gender and racial equality and higher education of black women, published essays, made speeches and was active in black women’s uplift organizations.

At the age of 66, Cooper became the fourth African American in the nation woman to receive a Ph.D., earning her doctorate from the Sorbonne in Paris.  Working well into her nineties, she spent her final thirty years at D.C.’s Frelinghuysen University, a school for working-class black adults.

She died in 1964 and is buried in Raleigh.

Kristin Scott Thomas Films [14/20] → Contre Toi (In Your Hands)