A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South

Published in 1892, A Voice from the South (1892) is the only book published by one of the most prominent African American women scholars and educators of her era. Born a slave, Anna Julia Haywood Cooper would go on to become the fourth African American woman to earn a doctoral degree. Cooper became a prominent member of the black community in Washington, D.C., serving as principal at M Street High School, during which time she wrote A Voice from the South. In it, she engages a variety of issues, including women’s rights, racial progress, segregation, and the education of black women. Cooper also discusses a number of authors and their representations of African Americans, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Albion Tourgee, George Washington Cable, William Dean Howells, and Maurice Thompson, reaching the conclusion that an accurate depiction had yet to be written.