Anna J Cooper's A Voice From The United States

According to George Herbert Mead, “Society is Unity in diversity”, but throughout the readings of Anna J Cooper and Claudia Rankine one notices that society has not been unified due to the underlying theme of racism, which connects the microaggressions that causes racial prejudices Rankine discusses in Citizen: An American Lyric. Also, in A Voice from the South, scholar Anna J Cooper recognizes the incorrect representation of black people and she examines different authors’ representation of African-Americans. She concludes that an accurate depiction of African Americans has yet been depicted and goes on to state, “What I hope to see before I die is a black man honestly and appreciatively portraying both the Negro as he is, and the white man, occasionally, as seen from the Negro 's standpoint."

A Voice from the South was published in 1892, slavery had just ended only 3 decades prior, so black people were still trying to gain their true ‘freedom’. Cooper did not only discuss the misrepresentation of black people, but also the importance of education, specifically towards black women. She argues that it is essential to the “the regeneration and progress of a race”. George Herbert Mead also agrees and states, “The legitimate basis of distinction between mind and body is between the social patterns and the patterns of the organism itself. Education must bring the two closely together. We have, as yet, no-comprehending category. This does not mean to say that there is anything logically against it; it is merely a lack of our apparatus or knowledge” (Mead 1927). The two connect, by stating that if more groups educate oneself regarding other groups, that person will not marginalize every person they encounter from that specific