February 17, 2010

Anna J. Cooper in the Mail


One of LeDroit Park’s notable residents was featured on a stamp in June.  Our very own Anna J. Cooper (1858 – 1964) lived at the veranda-lined house at Second and T Streets. The circle at Third and T Streets was named in her honor.

Ms. Cooper is most famous for her book A Voice from the South, considered a foundational text in black feminism and published while she was the principal of the M Street High School (now called Dunbar High School).  She then moved on to teach night classes for black Washingtonians at Frelinghuysen University, which was located in her house for a time.  She received a PhD at the Sorbonne in 1924, making her among the first black American women to receive a doctorate.

If you have a newer U.S. passport, you may notice that she is quoted on pages 26-7: “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.”

Get a sheet of her stamps and send a little piece of your neighborhood’s history whenever you send a letter.

Categories: History
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2 Replies

  1. Great post! So much history in our little enclave of LeDroit Park. I never knew there was a stamp to honor her.

    AP - February 17, 2010 @ 10:29 am
  2. […] researching topics for my tour I came across a 1995 postage stamp commemorating him. This makes him the first of two LeDroit Park residents featured on postage […]

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