Dr. Georgiana Rose Simpson was an educator, philologist,  suffragist and the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in the United States. 

Dr. Simpson received her doctoral degree in German from the University of Chicago in 1921.

• Dr. Simpson was a highly celebrated teacher at The M Street School when she enrolled at the University of Chicago. Her presence and removal sparked big changes in the housing policies at the University of Chicago.

• Almost instantly she faced extreme racism and discrimination and was forced to live off-campus when white students objected to sharing a dorm with a Black woman. However, Simpson was no stranger to advancing against adversity as evidenced in her participation in the 1913 Woman's Suffrage March.  She continued on at the University of Chicago and successfully earned 3 degrees, an AB in 1911, AM in 1920, and a Ph.D. in 1921.

• Dr. Simpson was an early member of  Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated working within both the Alpha and Beta chapters of the organization, primarily.

• Learn more about her here. 

• Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander was an attorney and civil rights activist of the early-to-mid-20th century. In 1921, Mossell Alexander was the first African-American to receive a Ph.D. in economics in the United States. 

• Sadie's maternal aunt, Sarah Tanner Moore was married to Dr. Lewis B Moore of Howard University but passed in 1901.

• Her uncle Dr. Lewis B Moore, Dean at Howard University quickly married Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority member Lavinia W. Moore in 1902. 

• Alpha woman Moore had previously been a teacher and the principal of the Ivy Center in DC. 

• Mrs. Moore became a member shortly after the sorority was approved by Dean Moore and other deans in November of 1907.

• The couple primarily raised Moore's 2 children from his previous marriage,  Sadie, and her siblings during the school year at their house located on the campus of Howard University.  As such, Sadie was present during countless meetings parties, gatherings & events held at their home. These affairs featured some of the greatest minds of their times. Some of those meetings and minds involved the founders and early members of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority of Howard University.  

• In fact, 2 of her favorite babysitters Osceola McCarthy Adams and Bertha Pitts Campbell were members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority when she was in their charge. 

• Dr. Lewis B Moore also gave Delta Sigma Theta Sorority permission to function as a recognized campus group, becoming the second Greek-letter sorority established on Howard's campus.

• By the time Sadie graduated from M Street (Dunbar) High in 1915, she was convinced she would be attending college and would become a sorority girl.

• Sadie held on to her desire to become a sorority girl while matriculating at Penn and became one of the charter members of the Gamma chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority in 1918.

• So primed & poised was Sadie that she was a favorite to become the sorority's first national president. At the request of the Alpha Chapter, the four existing chapters of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority were called to convene at Howard University in December 1919, for their first national convention. The group planned to host their meetings in the women's dormitory on campus however Dr. Moore offered his office as a more suitable meeting place. 

• Learn more about her here. 

Dr. Eva B. Dykes was a prominent educator and the third black American woman to be awarded a Ph.D. 

• While attending Howard University, Eva was initiated into the Alpha chapter of  Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

•  At the end of her last semester, she was awarded Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated's first official scholarship due to her high scholastic achievements. Dykes was able to utilize those funds  & subsequent earnings to pay to further her education.

•  Soon after graduation, Dykes attended Radcliffe College magna cum laude with a second B.A. in 1917 and a M.A. in 1918. While at Radcliffe she was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa. 

• In 1920 Dykes began teaching at Dunbar High School, and in 1921 she received a Ph.D. from Radcliffe (now a part of Harvard University). Her dissertation was titled “Pope and His Influence in America from 1715 to 1815”, and explored the attitudes of Alexander Pope towards slavery and his influence on American writers. 

• Learn more about her here.

• Anna Julia Haywood Cooper was an American activist, author, educator, speaker,  and sociologist and one of the most prominent African American scholars in United States history.

• Born into slavery in 1858, Cooper went on to receive a world-class education and claim power and prestige in academic and social circles.

• In 1924, she received her PhD from the Sorbonne, University of Paris. Cooper became the fourth African-American woman to earn a doctoral degree. She was also a prominent member of Washington, D.C.'s African-American community and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.

Legacy

Pages 24 and 25 of the 2016 United States passport contain the following quotation: "The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class – it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity." – Anna Julia Cooper

In 2009, the United States Postal Service released a commemorative stamp in Cooper's honor.

Also in 2009, a tuition-free private middle school was opened and named in her honor – the Anna Julia Cooper Episcopal School on historic Church Hill in Richmond, Virginia.[4]

Cooper is honored on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on February 28.[5]

The Anna Julia Cooper Center on Gender, Race, and Politics in the South at Wake Forest University was established in Anna Cooper's honor. Melissa Harris-Perry is the founding director.[6]

There is an Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women's Studies at Spelman College.[7]

Timeline

• 1858: Born into slavery in Raleigh, North Carolina.[8]

• 1877: Marries George A. C. Cooper.

• 1879: Husband dies and Anna is widowed at 21 years of age.[8]

• 1887: Begins teaching math and Latin at the Preparatory School.[9]

• 1891: Participates in the weekly "Saturday Circle" or "Saturday Nighters" salon of Black Washingtonians.[10]

• 1892: Publishes "A Voice From The South By a Black Woman of the South".

• 1892: Founded the Colored Women's League with Helen Appo Cook.[11]

• 1893: Co-hosts anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells with Frederick Douglass and Lucy Ellen Moten[12]

• 1893: Becomes only woman elected to the American Negro Academy.[12]

• 1893: Attends the World's Congress of Representative Women and reads paper titled "The Intellectual Progress of the Colored Women of the United States since the Emancipation Proclamation"

• 1900: Attends the First Pan-African Conference in London, reads paper titled "The Negro Problem in America", and joins the executive committee.[13]

• 1901: Becomes second black female principal of M. Street High School.[14]

• 1925: Earns doctorate from University of Paris, purchases home in LeDroit Park, begins hosting monthly "Les Amis de la Langue Francaise".[15]

• 1929: Becomes second president of Frelinghuysen University in Washington, D.C.[16]

• 1940: Becomes registrar of Frelinghuysen University and hosts classes in her LeDroit home.[16]

• 1964: February 27, Anna J. Cooper dies in Washington D.C. at the age of 105.[17]

• Learn more about her here.