Summary Of I Speak For The Colored Women Of The South By Anna Julia Cooper

I Speak for the Colored Women of the South

The speech was delivered at the World’s Congress of Representative Women, held in Chicago 1893 by Anna Julia Cooper. She was a black African-American woman and the speech was created to tell people about the predicament of the African-American women. The White people were the intended audience. At this period the African-American women were being “doubly enslaved” based on sex and shade. It isn’t completely dreary, she tells about the progresses made by African-American in education and economic status, specially the ones who had earned a college degree. There is a possibility that Emancipation and proclamation of 1863 would have shaped the point of view of this primary source. They sometimes couldn’t

There are no biases that helped to create the message of the author. In this speech, Anna Cooper had enlightened on the “heroic struggle against fearful and overwhelming odds” shown by the colored women. Even though 1800s is the period of the reconstruction, African American were not able to keep them up as a citizen of the nation. The numerous attempt of Republican Party for the equal right to the former slaves was deceased as the number of Republican decreased from the congress. As a result, there was a rise of Jim Crow which gives much power to the whites. Colored people were forced to take a laborious job with low wages and be inferior to the whites. Anna has not only spoken for her colored women but also for the colored people. She had explicated that the “nation’s soil is watered with the blood and tears of the colored people of America. Even with destitute, it does not stop them to make “characteristic history and evolved their destiny”. Anna mentioned Frederick Douglass quote “One with God is majority” which show the faith of colored people that bring change in wrong deed at a right

However, it has been their source of strength to fight back for their right. In the second half of Anna’s speech, she had addressed the struggle of colored women to get education and, also to send their young one to the school. Anna Julia Cooper was a daughter of slave mother. When she was enrolling in school, she realized that she was excellent in the study as well as a feminist. After realization, she started supporting education for the colored women and, also educating colored women from middle class family. The determination for higher living and pure thinking has lead colored women to get a higher education and be sophisticate on their respective fields. By 1890s, many colored people had been in about “two and half million colored pupil have learned reading and writing.” Not only they were educated but also some were in good position in their respective