Anna Julia Cooper became a renknown scholar with important contributions to feminism and African American political philosophy like A Voice from the South By a Black Woman Of the South (1982)
She was born in North Carolina between 1858-1859, before the American Civil War. Her mother was an untutored slave who was able to read the Bible and write a little, and her father was probably her mother's master. This background was actually common for African Americans in slavery times and depicts the uneducation and sexual abuse faced by female slaves as well as the struggle for self-education.
When she was 9 years old and removed from slavery, Anna went to Saint Augustine Normal School in Raleigh, where she studied and also worked as a tutor and educator after completing her studies.
Her background and her mother's situation motivated her to pursue a life of teaching and educating others, as well as highlighting the structures of opression faced by African Americans.