Singing Something, A: Anna J. Cooper & the Foundations of Womanist Theology

by Karen Baker-Fletcher

Anna Julia Cooper was a black woman intellectual, educator, and social reformer at the end of the nineteenth century. Like contemporary Americans she wrestled with problems of racism, sexism, classism, and imperialism. This book A Singing Something, considers the legacy of thought and action she leaves contemporary women and men. Our age is far less optimistic than her own. And yet, she and her contemporaries struggled against even harsher social injustices than we do today. Like Ida B. Wells Barnett, Cooper struggled for justice during an era in which lynching of black women and men was at an all time high Jim Crow segregation was strictly enforced in the South. Life in the North was only relatively freer, since segregation there also constrained the socioeconomic and political advancement of black Americans.
A Singing Something asks what we can learn from Cooper's thought and life of faith as we continue the struggle for fuller human rights. From a womanist perspective, her legacy of faith in action is rich in particular historical and cultural significance for black women and men today, offering possibilities for a renewal of hope for all humanity. Anna Cooper believed there was a "Singing Something" in humankind that rises up in the face of domination. The source of this voter was the Creator of all. It empowers the oppressed to challenge injustice. A Singing Something considers Cooper's gift of voice in relation to other gifts of power drawn from black women's culture.

216 pages, Hardcover

First published September 25, 1994

About the author

Karen Baker-Fletcher is Professor of Systematic Theology at Southern Methodist University's Perkin's School of Theology.