ABSTRACT
Anna Julia Cooper remains one of the enigmatic figures of nineteenth-century Black American history whose work is held in high esteem and on the seldom read. A lifelong scholar and educator, and one of the first American women of color to obtain a higher degree, Cooper displays a genuine concern for the plight of her people along with a great deal of arrogance and a noticeable sort of distancing that occurs in much of her best-known work. Whereas Walker addresses his remarks, in tone and spirit, almost entirely too Black males, Cooper moves back and forth between asking Black males to pay more attention to the travails of black females, and trying to use their Black womanhood to get basic points across. Cooper and David Walker have in common, then, a strong desire to see America live up to its political obligations, and a general sense of outrage at the injustices that human beings inflict on each other.
