Black History Month: Study Abroad

"As Angela Davis writes in her autobiography, she went to Frankfurt after having worked with [Herbert] Marcuse as a senior in college at Brandeis. Marcuse spontaneously created an independent tutorial for Davis after she expressed her interest in philosophy; inspired by that and an earlier summer stint in Paris and Frankfurt, Davis then spent two years on a fellowship at the university in Frankfurt, studying with Adorno, Marcuse, Oscar Negt, and others at the Institute for Social Research. It was during the time of the SDS student movement—and a roiling period of Black Panther activism state-side. Davis recounts formative experiences in Frankfurt, both theoretical, working on Kant, Hegel, and Marx, and practical, participating in the protests against American aggression in Vietnam and mass student demonstrations, including those following the infamous police killing of Ben Ohnesorge, a student, during a protest against the Shah of Iran in West Berlin in 1967." [Source: Bernard E. Harcourt | Angela Davis on Marcuse, Adorno, and the German SDS Student Movement – Revolution 13/13 (columbia.edu)]

Anna Julia Cooper was a master educator, education administrator, writer, community activist and advocate for women's rights. Born in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1858, Cooper was the daughter of a white slaveholder and an enslaved mother. She was nine years old when she received a scholarship and began her education at Saint Augustine's Normal School and Collegiate Institute in Raleigh. She went on to earn a bachelor's degree (1884) and a master's degree (1887) at Oberlin College. Cooper completed courses in French literature, history, and phonetics at La Guilde Internationale in Paris during the summers of 1911-1913 and enrolled in a doctoral program at Columbia University in 1914. Her pursuit of this graduate degree was hindered by personal circumstances, but she successfully transferred her credits from Columbia and La Guilde Internationale to the Sorbonne in 1924. Cooper completed her graduate work at the Sorbonne in 1925. The university shipped her diploma to the U.S. and she received it at a ceremony held at Howard University on December 29, 1925. Part of Cooper's legacy is represented by the inclusion of one of her quotes included at the top of pages 26 and 27 in the U.S. passport: "The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or sect, a party or a class -- it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity." [Source: https://entreetoblackparis.blogspot.com/]