Readings:
Psalm 78:1-7
Proverbs 9:1-6
1 Timothy
4:6-16
Luke 4:14-21
Preface of a Saint (3)
PRAYER (traditional language)
Eternal God, who didst inspire Anna Julia Haywood Cooper and Elizabeth
Evelyn Wright with the love of learning and the joy of teaching: Help
us also to gather and use the resources of our communities for the education
of all thy children; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who livest and reignest
with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
PRAYER (contemporary language)
Eternal God, you inspired Anna Julia Haywood Cooper and Elizabeth Evelyn
Wright with the love of learning and the joy of teaching: Help us also
to gather and use the resources of our communities for the education of
all your children; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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Last updated: 15 January 2011
The Commemoration of Anna Cooper was provisionally
approved by General Convention, June 2006; that of Elizabeth Wright by
General Convention in 2009 |
ANNA
JULIA HAYWOOD COOPER and
ELIZABETH EVELYN WRIGHT EDUCATORS
(1964, 1906)
Anna
Julia Haywood Cooper (August 10, c1859- February 27, 1964). Educator,
advocate and scholar. Born in Raleigh, North Carolina to an enslaved woman
and a white man, presumably her mother's master, Anna Julia was an academically
gifted child and received a scholarship to attend St. Augustine Normal
School and Collegiate Institute, a school founded by the Episcopal Church
to educate African-American teachers and clergy. There she began her membership
in the Episcopal Church. After forcing her way into a Greek class designed
for male theology students, Anna Julia later married the instructor, George
A.C. Cooper, the second African-American ordained to the Episcopal priesthood
in North Carolina. After her husband's death in 1879, Cooper received
degrees in mathematics from Oberlin College, and was made principal of
the only African American high school in Washington D.C.. She was denied
reappointment in 1906 because she refused to lower her educational standards.
Throughout her career, Cooper emphasized the importance of education to
the future of African Americans, and was critical of the lack of support
they received from the church. An advocate for African-American women,
Cooper assisted in organizing the Colored Women's League and the first
Colored Settlement House in Washington, D.C. She wrote and spoke widely
on issues of race and gender, and took an active role in national and
international organizations founded to advance African Americans.
At the age of fifty-five she adopted the five children of her nephew.
In 1925, Cooper became the fourth African-American woman to complete a
Ph.D degree, granted from the Sorbonne when she was sixty-five years old.
From 1930-1942, Cooper served as president of Frelinghuysen University.
from the Episcopal Women's History Project
There is also an extensive article in Wikipedia.
Note that the spelling of "Haywood" is not consistent.
Elizabeth Evelyn Wright (April 3, 1872 - December 14,
1906) founded Denmark Industrial Institute in Denmark, South Carolina,
as a school for African-American youth. It is present-day Voorhees College,
a historically black college. She was a humanitarian and educator, founding
several schools for black children.
In 1888, she matriculated at Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute
as a night student. After two years, Wright moved to Hampton County, South
Carolina to assist in a rural school for black children. After the school
was burned, she returned to Tuskegee and graduated.
In 1897, she moved to Denmark in rural Bamberg County, South Carolina.
There she started a school over a store with the support of some influential
people in the community. She raised money for what she called Denmark
Industrial School, modeled after Tuskegee Institute. Ralph Voorhees and
his wife, philanthropists from Clinton, New Jersey, donated $5,000 for
the purchase of land and construction of the school's first building.
In 1902 Voorhees Industrial School opened for male and female students
at the elementary and high school levels, and Wright was principal. Voorhees
provided additional gifts during the next few years, and the General Assembly
incorporated the school in his name.
The school was later affiliated with the Protestant Episcopal Church
and eventually became a fully accredited four-year college.
— from Wikipedia
More information may be found in
an article from the Times & Democrat of Orangeburg, SC.
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