Recently Anna Julia Cooper has emerged as the most important classic writer in the tradition of African American feminist thought. Mary Helen Washington described Cooper's work as "the most precise, forceful, well-argued statement of black feminist thought to come out of the nineteenth century." This is the first collection of all of Cooper's major writings, including many never before published. It includes all of the essays from her famous book, A Voice from the South, in addition to many other essays and letters accessible only in archives until now. The organization of this important new collection lends itself to a clearer understanding of the major themes and contributions of Cooper's thought, her development as a thinker and writer, and the critiques and controversies surrounding her work. Lemert and Bhan introduce Cooper as an activist, settlement founder, school teacher, college president, linguist, and scholar—a life that paralleled the prodigious accomplishments of W.E.B. Du Bois in so many ways.

Born into slavery in 1858, Anna Julia Cooper was a renowned scholar, educator, and activist who called for critical consciousness and collective action on the part of all marginalized people. Rejecting notions that Cooper was an elitist duped by dominant ideologies, Vivian M. May examines Cooper's visionary politics and defiant philosophy to reveal her radical methodology of dissent. May explores Cooper's extraordinary life and writings on subjects as wide-ranging as capitalism and slavery, the Haitian revolution, Black feminism, and Pan-Africanism, showing how, across six decades of work, Cooper helped to lay the foundations of modern-day race and gender studies. -- From publisher's description.

An “entertaining and occasionally even moving” personal recollection by the lawyer, historian, and renowned chronicler of old-money WASP society (The Boston Globe). At the time of his death, Louis Auchincloss—enemy of bores, self-pity, and stale gossip—had just finished taking on a subject he had long avoided: himself. His memoir confirms that, despite the spark of his fiction, Auchincloss himself was the most entertaining character he ever created. No traitor to his class, but occasionally its critic, Auchincloss returns to his insular society, which he maintains was less interesting than its members admitted—and unfurls his life with dignity, summoning family (particularly his father, who suffered from depression and forgave him for hating sports) and intimates. Brooke Astor and her circle are here, along with glimpses of Jacqueline Onassis. Most memorable, though, is Auchincloss’s way with those outside the salon: the cranky maid; the maiden aunt, perpetually out of place; the less-than-well-born boy who threw himself from a window over a woman and a man. Above all, here is what it was like to be Auchincloss, an American master, a New York Times–bestselling novelist, and a rare, generous, lively spirit to the end. “[Auchincloss] concentrates on bringing back to life—literary alchemy, after all—the people who loved him: his mother, father, aunts, uncles, school friends and colleagues. He understands how lucky he was to have them, and ‘A Voice From Old New York’ is his thank-you note.” —The New York Times

Stephens was a black reporter for the black newspaper Weekly Anglo-African when the Civil War broke out. He joined the 54th Massachusetts, the first black Union regiment. Promoted to sergeant, he stormed Battery Wagner with his regiment. Surviving the Union defeat, Stephens served with the 54th through the end of the war.

A collection of essential writings from the iconic foremother of Black women's intellectual history, feminism, and activism, who helped pave the way for modern social justice movements like Black Lives Matter and Say Her Name A Penguin Classic The Portable Anna Julia Cooper brings together, for the first time, Anna Julia Cooper's major collection of essays, A Voice from the South, along with several previously unpublished poems, plays, journalism and selected correspondences, including over thirty previously unpublished letters between Anna Julia Cooper and W. E. B. Du Bois. The Portable Anna Julia Cooper will introduce a new generation of readers to an educator, public intellectual, and community activist whose prescient insights and eloquent prose underlie some of the most important developments in modern American intellectual thought and African American social and political activism. Recognized as the iconic foremother of Black women's intellectual history and activism, Cooper (1858-1964) penned one of the most forceful and enduring statements of Black feminist thought to come of out of the nineteenth century. Attention to her work has grown exponentially over the years--her words have been memorialized in the US passport and, in 2009, she was commemorated with a US postal stamp. Cooper's writings on the centrality of Black girls and women to our larger national discourse has proved especially prescient in this moment of Black Lives Matter, Say Her Name, and the recent protests that have shaken the nation.