This collection of essays (1891) is an unparalleled statement of black feminist thought in the nineteenth century, and is considered to be one of the original texts of the black feminist movement. Cooper came of age in a period of conservatism in the black community, a time when Afro-American intellectual and political ideas were dominated by men. At the heart of her work is a belief that the status of black women, the most oppressed group of all, is the only true measure of collective racial progress.

In addition to resurrecting the works of black women authors, it is our hope that this set will facilitate the resurrection of the Afro-American woman's literary tradition itself by unearthing its nineteenth-century roots.

A brilliant example of how to discuss together the issues of both gender and race, one of the first in US American discourse to so approach such matters.