Today, on the final day of Black Herstory Month, I honor my favorite Black woman of history: Ida B. Wells (1862-1931), married name Wells-Barnett, fierce, articulate, determined, courageous and completely uncompromising in her fight for racial and gender justice. And she did most of her fighting with a pen, as she was best known for writing anti-lynching newspaper articles.
Author: Vivian May
Vivian M. May is Associate Professor of Women’s & Gender Studies at Syracuse University. She is author of Anna Julia Cooper, Visionary Black Feminist (Routledge, 2007) and is working on a new book, Intersectionality: Theories, Histories, Practices (Routledge). Her writings on Black feminist thought, intersectionality, feminist philosophy, and African American literature have appeared in numerous journals, including African American Review, Hypatia, Callaloo, Southern Quarterly, and Women’s Studies Quarterly. With Beverly Guy-Sheftall, the Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s Studies at Spelman College, May co-chaired the 2009 & 2010 National Women’s Studies Association conferences, “Difficult Dialogues.” She also has served as a biographical consultant to the US Postal Service for the 2009 Anna Julia Cooper Black Heritage stamp and for a documentary, Called to Teach: The Anna Julia Cooper Story (in development, LLeft Entertainment, Washington, DC).
Black Herstory: Remembering Black Feminist Educator, Scholar and Activist Anna Julia Cooper
Although Anna Julia Cooper was recently commemorated with a U.S. postage stamp, and her words appear on U.S. passports, too few know about her.