Anna Julia Haywood Cooper, a stream cannot rise higher than its source: The vanguard as the panacea for the plight of black America

This dissertation examines Anna Julia Haywood Cooper\u27s analysis of the most viable means to achieve social equality for black Americans. She argued that one important route toward social equality was in the development of individuals who could serve as the vanguard of black America. Though her contemporaries, such as Alexander Crummell and W. E. B. DuBois created and advanced the notion of a Talented Tenth, Anna Cooper\u27s special contribution is in her specific outline of how that leadership class should be brought into being. This research investigates three important areas, education, gender equality and religion, in which Cooper\u27s ideas are developed. Formal education and access to the best of western civilization are both the centerpiece and the stream of thought which connect the three areas