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BP MARKOWITZ, POSTAL SERVICE UNVEIL NEW STAMP HONORING AFRICAN-AMERICAN EDUCATOR, ACTIVIST ANNA JULIA COOPER |
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In photo 2: The Anna Julia Cooper stamp |
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Photographs by Kathryn Kirk
In photo 1 (left to right): Andrea Burrows, USPS customer relations coordinator; Brooklyn Postmaster Joseph Chiossone; BP Markowitz; Dr. Lester Young, Jr., regent, Board of Regents, University of the State of New York; Dr. Sabrina Hope-King, chief academic officer, Department of Education; Dr. Evelyn Castro, associate dean, School of Education, Long Island University
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On Tuesday, June 16, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz joined Brooklyn Postmaster Joseph Chiossone and other guests as the United States Postal Service (USPS) officially unveiled a new stamp honoring educator, scholar, feminist and activist Anna Julia Cooper. The North Carolina native is the 32nd honoree in the Postal Service’s Black Heritage stamp series.
“Anna Julia Cooper considered it her purpose in life to bring education to those who were otherwise denied it, and really there is no higher calling,” said BP Markowitz. “In a society rife with discrimination against both women and African-Americans, Cooper understood that knowledge was power and that education was the means of lifting oneself up the ladder of society—even if many forces were conspiring to keep you on the first rung.”
According to the USPS, Cooper was an educator, scholar, feminist and activist who gave voice to the African-American community during the 19th and 20th centuries—from the end of slavery to the beginning of the civil rights movement. Born in Raleigh, NC, around 1858, Cooper earned a degree in mathematics from Oberlin College, OH, in 1884, becoming one of the first African-American women to graduate from the school. Cooper returned to Raleigh and taught math, Greek, and Latin at St. Augustine’s until 1887, when she was invited to teach math and science at the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth (later known as M Street and today as Dunbar High School) in Washington, D.C., the largest and most prestigious public high school for African Americans in the nation. Cooper—who once described her vocation as “the education of neglected people”—viewed learning as a means of true liberation. She is best known for her educational leadership. Cooper died Feb. 27, 1964, in her Washington, D.C. home. She is buried next to her husband in Raleigh, NC.
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