Professor Melissa Harris-Perry, Founder and President

Learn more about Melissa Harris-Perry

 
... woman’s strongest vindication for speaking [is] that the world needs to hear her voice.
— Anna Julia Cooper

Anna Julia Cooper; a black woman born in North Carolina in the final decade of American slavery, spent her extraordinary life as a scholar, educator, and activist, challenging boundaries of gender, race, and location that sought to confine her. She pressed against these limitations, not only for herself, but for those she referred to as “neglected peoples”  She was especially committed to children who many others believed could not learn or achieve. 

With her legacy as guide, the Anna Julia Cooper Center has accomplished ambitious and transformative scholarship, programming, and policy change far exceeding our size and resources.

The Anna Julia Cooper Center sustains authentic relationships with partners in academic, advocacy, policy making, and media communities to advance justice through intersectional scholarship, engaged pedagogy, and intentional action.

READ AJC CENTER: BUILDING THE LEGACY 2012-2018

READ AJC CENTER REPORT 2018-2019- Final Wake Forest University Year