A Voice From the South

by Anna Julia Cooper, Mary Helen Washington (Introduction)

Overview

Considered one of the original texts foretelling the black feminist movement, this collection of essays, first published in 1892, offers an unparalleled view into the thought of black women writers in nineteenth-century America. A leading black spokeswoman of her time, Anna Julia Cooper came of age during a conservative wave in the black community, a time when men completely dominated African-American intellectual and political ideas. In these essays, Cooper criticizes black men for securing higher education for themselves through the ministry, while erecting roadblocks to deny women access to those same opportunities, and denounces the elitism and provinciality of the white women's movement. Passionately committed to women's independence, Cooper espoused higher education as the essential key to ending women's physical, emotional, and economic dependence on men.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199878864
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/14/1988
Series:	The ^ASchomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

Editorial Reviews

"It's a pleasure to come across Anna Julia Cooper, an outspoken feminist with a good sharp bite...A Voice from the South [is] one of the primary texts of black feminism."—Newsweek

"[A] landmark collection of feminist essays...The hope and commitment that Cooper was able to summon in the year lynchings reached their zenith [1892] is remarkable.—Eric J. Sundquist in he New York Times Book Review "And there's Anna Julia Cooper, whose eloquent and prophetic writings in A Voice From the South, published in 1892, stands as a hallmark of Black-feminist writing."—Essence

"The most compelling volume of this genre [Afro-American essays]....One of the original texts of black feminist analysis."—The Women's Review of Books

"The most precise, forceful, well-argued statement of black feminist thought to come out of the nineteenth century. A provocative look at the issues that dominated the intellectual doscourse of black women during the 1890s "—Mary Helen Washington from the Introduction

From the Publisher