One of the most intriguing and dedicated figures to emerge in the struggle for African American rights after slavery is Anna Julia Cooper. Cooper lived to be 105 years old, witnessing the Civil War, Reconstruction, the reign of the Ku Klux Klan, and the hopeful early civil-rights period. Her work as an author is only one aspect of her life of service; she was also for many years a distinguished educator and community leader.

Anna Julia Haywood was born on 10 August 1858 in Raleigh, North Carolina, the daughter of a slave, Hannah Stanley Haywood, and an unnamed white father who was quite possibly her mother's master, George Washington Haywood. Cooper spent the first five years of her life as a slave. She recalls that during the Civil War she "served many an anxious slave's superstition to wake up the baby & ask directly 'Which sid is goin' to win de war...