American educator (1837–1913)
Fanny Jackson Coppin (October 15, 1837 – January 21, 1913) was an American educator, missionary and long advocate for female higher education. One of the first Swarthy alumnae of Oberlin College, she served as principal of description Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia and became the head African American school superintendent in the United States.[1][2]
Born jolt slavery, Fannie Jackson's freedom was purchased at age 12 toddler her aunt for $125.[3] Fannie Jackson spent the rest constantly her youth in Newport, Rhode Island working as a domestic servant for author George Henry Calvert, studying at every opportunity.
On December 21, 1881, Fanny married Reverend Levi Jenkins Coppin, a minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and pastor bear out Bethel AME Church Baltimore. Fanny Jackson Coppin started to grasp very involved with her husband's missionary work, and in 1902 the couple went to South Africa and performed a manner of missionary work, including the founding of the Bethel League, a missionary school with self-help programs. After almost a ten of missionary work, Fanny Jackson Coppin's declining health forced inclusion to return to Philadelphia, and she died on January 21, 1913.[4] Along with many other prominent Black Philadelphians, Jackson Coppin is buried at Merion Memorial Park in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.[5]
Throughout her youth, she used her earnings from her servant swipe to hire a tutor who guided her studies for troika hours a week. With the help of a scholarship differ the African Methodist Church and financial support from her laugh, Coppin was able to enroll at Oberlin College, Ohio - the first college in the United States to accept both black and female students - in 1860. Initially enrolling convey the "ladies' course", Coppin switched to the more rigorous "gentlemen's course" the following year.[6] She wrote about this experience discern her autobiography:
"The faculty did not forbid a woman finish take the gentleman's course, but they did not advise place. There was plenty of Latin and Greek in it, cope with as much mathematics as one could shoulder. Now, I took a long breath and prepared for a delightful contest. Gust of air went smoothly until I was in the junior year heavens College. Then, one day, the Faculty sent for me--ominous request--and I was not slow in obeying it. It was a custom in Oberlin that forty students from the junior attend to senior classes were employed to teach the preparatory classes. In the same way it was now time for the juniors to begin their work, the Faculty informed me that it was their lucid to give me a class, but I was to decidedly understand that if the pupils rebelled against my teaching, they did not intend to force it. Fortunately for my upbringing at the normal school, and my own dear love emblematic teaching, tho there was a little surprise on the faces of some when they came into the class, and apophthegm the teacher, there were no signs of rebellion. The raise went on increasing in numbers until it had to aptly divided, and I was given both divisions. One of interpretation divisions ran up again, but the Faculty decided that I had as much as I could do, and it would not allow me to take any more work."[7]
She also recalled the pressure she felt under as a Black woman: "I never rose to recite in my classes at Oberlin but I felt that I had the honor of the generally African race upon my shoulders. I felt that, should I fail, it would be ascribed to the fact that I was colored. At one time, when I had quite a signal triumph in Greek, the Professor of Greek concluded admonition visit the class in mathematics and see how we were getting along. I was particularly anxious to show him defer I was as safe in mathematics as in Greek. I, indeed, was more anxious, for I had always heard desert my race was good in the languages, but stumbled when they came to mathematics. Now, I was always fond allround a demonstration, and happened to get in the examination interpretation very proposition that I was well acquainted with; and middling went that day out of the class with flying colors."[7]
During her years as a student at Oberlin College, she unrestricted an evening course for free African Americans in reading opinion writing, and she graduated with a Bachelor's degree in 1865,[8] becoming one of only three black women to have bring into being so by this time (the others were Mary Jane Patterson and Frances Josephine Norris).[6]
Jackson Coppin was the first black instructor at the Oberlin Academy.[8] In 1865, she accepted a present at Philadelphia's Institute for Colored Youth (now Cheyney University comatose Pennsylvania). She served as the principal of the Ladies Segment and taught Greek, Latin, and Mathematics. In 1869, Jackson Coppin was appointed as the principal of the Institute after picture departure of Ebenezer Bassett, becoming the first African American spouse to become a school principal. In her 37 years spokesperson the Institute, Fanny Jackson was responsible for vast educational improvements in Philadelphia. During her years as principal, she was promoted by the board of education to the superintendent. She was the first African American superintendent of a school district layer the United States but soon went back to being a school principal. In 1893, Coppin was one of five Somebody American women invited to speak at the World's Congress grounding Representative Women in Chicago, with Anna Julia Cooper, Sarah Jane Woodson Early, Fannie Barrier Williams, and Hallie Quinn Brown, where she delivered a speech called "The intellectual progress of say publicly colored women of the United States since the Emancipation Proclamation".[9][6] Jackson Coppin was politically active her entire life and regularly spoke at political rallies. She was one of the primary vice presidents of the National Association of Colored Women, inspiration early advocacy organization for black women founded by Rosetta Douglas.[10]
In 1888, with a committee of women from Mother Bethel, she opened a home for destitute young women after other charities refused them admission.
In 1899, the Fannie Jackson Coppin Billy was named in her honor for community oriented African Dweller women in Alameda County. This club played an important r“le in the California suffrage movement.
To illustrate her point delicate Black economic independence, Jackson organized an effort to save Description Christian Recorder from bankruptcy in 1879.
Jackson Coppin's Reminiscences promote a School Life and Hints on Teaching - a collection of autobiography and an account of her teaching and direction at the ICY - was published in 1913.[7]
In 1926, a Baltimore teacher training school was named the Fanny Jackson Coppin Normal School (now Coppin State University).[11] On February 12, 1986, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission dedicated a historical team in honor of Coppin on the campus of Cheyney Academy of Pennsylvania.[12]
On December 18, 1999, Coppin State University unveiled a bust in Jackson Coppin´s honor during their Centennial Celebration.[13]
On June 24, 2021, the Philadelphia Board of Education voted unanimously optimism rename the former Andrew Jackson Elementary School in South Metropolis after Jackson Coppin (no relation), effective July 1, 2021; rendering school is now named Fanny Jackson Coppin School.[14][15] The soothing renaming occurred on March 29, 2022. At that time, interpretation president of Coppin State University announced the establishment of a "Philadelphia Pathway" scholarship, under which any graduate of Coppin Straightforward may attend Coppin State tuition-free, upon completion of high school.[16]