of the Cakewalkwith Paul Laurence Dunbar. He
collaborated with his son Mercer Cook on St. Louis
Woman, the musical adaptation that WALLACE
THURMANand COUNTEECULLENdeveloped for
GOD SENDS SUNDAY (1931), Thurman’s first
novel. Cook composed the music, and his son
wrote the libretto.
Bibliography
Peterson, Bernard L. Jr. A Century of Musicals in Black
and White: An Encyclopedia of Musical Stage Works
By, About, or Involving African Americans.Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993.
Cooped Up Eloise Bibb Thompson(1924)
A play by ELOISEALBERTAVERONICABIBBTHOMP-
SONthat won her an honorable mention in the
1924–25 OPPORTUNITY literary contest. It was
staged at the Lafayette Theatre and also produced by
the ETHIOPIANARTPLAYERS.
Bibliography
Arata, Esther, and Nicholas Rotoli, eds. Black American
Playwrights, 1800 to the Present: A Bibliography.
Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1976.
Cooper, Anna Julia (ca. 1858–1964)
A pioneering scholar, teacher, and feminist whose
works lay the foundation for 20th-century African-
American debates about the cultural, educational,
and political potential of the race. Educated at Ober-
lin College, Cooper went on to teach at WILBER-
FORCE UNIVERSITY, to serve as principal at the
famed DUNBARHIGHSCHOOLin WASHINGTON,
D.C., and to found Ferlinghuysen University, a night
school for African Americans. Her most famous pub-
lication is the 1892 A Voice from the South by a Black
Woman of the South,a collection of insightful and vi-
sionary feminist essays.
In 1925, Cooper became the fourth African-
American woman to earn a Ph.D. when she gradu-
ated from the SORBONNE, in Paris. That same year,
she published Charlemagne Voyage à Jerusalem et a
Constantinoplewith a French press. Cooper was a
prolific writer and formidable thinker. During the
Harlem Renaissance, she published essays in THE
CRISISand other journals, and in 1951, she pub-
lished a biography of the influential Grimké family.Bibliography
Lemert, Charles, and Esme Bhan, eds. The Voice of Anna
Julia Cooper: Including a Voice from the South and
Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters.Lanham,
Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998.
Roses, Lorraine Elena, and Ruth Elizabeth Randolph,
Harlem Renaissance and Beyond: Literary Biographies
of 100 Black Women Writers, 1900–1945.Boston: G.
K. Hall & Co., 1990.
Washington, Mary Helen. “Anna Julia Cooper: The
Black Feminist Voice of the 1890s.” Legacy: A Jour-
nal of American Women Writers4, no. 2 (fall 1987):
3–15.Copeland, Josephine(unknown)
A Louisiana-born poet who published two poems
and then seems to have disappeared from the liter-
ary scene. The first, “Negro Folk Song,” was pub-
lished in the May 1940 issue of THECRISIS.It was
a mournful meditation on unrealized dreams. The
second, “The Zulu King: New Orleans,” appeared
in ARNABONTEMPS’s 1941 edited collection of po-
etry entitled Golden Slippers.It was a richly de-
tailed poem inspired by Mardi Gras celebrations in
Copeland’s home state.Bibliography
Roses, Lorraine Elena, and Ruth Elizabeth Randolph,
Harlem Renaissance and Beyond: Literary Biographies
of 100 Black Women Writers, 1900–1945.Boston: G.
K. Hall & Co., 1990.Copper SunCountee Cullen(1927)
The second volume of poems that COUNTEE
CULLENpublished and the collection that followed
the significant success of his debut volume entitled
COLOR(1925). The volume, published by HARPER
& BROTHERS, included illustrations by the well-
known white art deco illustrator Charles Cullen.
Countee Cullen, who had offered his first book as
a tribute to his parents, dedicated this volume to
YOLANDEDUBOIS, whom he referred to not by
name but as “The Not Impossible Her.” Like Color,
Copper Sunincluded a number of previously pub-96 Cooped Up