In 2009, she helped establish the Black Canadian Studies Association. Upon arrival in Toronto, she taught at Bickford Park High School.īeginning in 2004, Cooper began teaching African Canadian history and women's history at University of Toronto. Career Academia and education īefore moving to Canada, Cooper taught at Vauxhall Secondary School for a year. Her dissertation served as inspiration for the Canadian government 'to designate Bibb a person of national historic significance.' Her dissertation, 'Doing Battle in Freedom's Cause', is a biographical study of Henry Bibb, a 19th-century African-American abolitionist who lived and worked in Ontario.

In 2000, she earned a PhD in African-Canadian history with specialties in slavery and abolition.

In 1990, she returned to complete a Master of Arts degree, studying Black Canadian history. In 1983, Cooper enrolled at the University of Toronto, where she majored in African studies. Her first son, Akil, was born the following year. In 1980, Cooper migrated to Toronto due to civil unrest in Jamaica. In 1976, she received a teaching certificate from Excelsior Community College. After graduation, she moved in with Mutabaruka and his wife, Yvonne Peters for a year. By the time she graduated in 1975, Cooper had founded an African Studies Club at her school and had become a Rastafarian. Michael’s All-Age School and Camperdown High School. īetween ages three and eight, Cooper moved in with her aunt, Elfleda Campbell, in Kingston, Jamaica, where she studied at St.

Descendants on her father's side of the family worked as slaves on William Cooper's Whithorn sugar plantation. She is an ancestor of Alison Parkinson, who was sold into West Indian slavery. Personal life and education Ĭooper was born 8 November 1957 in Westmoreland, Jamaica to Edward and Ruth Campbell Cooper and had eight siblings-five sisters and three brothers. As a historian, 'she has taught Caribbean cultural studies, history, women's studies and Black studies at Ryerson and York universities, at the University of Toronto and at Dalhousie University.' She is also an author and dub poet who as of 2018, has published five volumes of poetry. Afua Ava Pamela Cooper (born 8 November 1957) is a Jamaican-born Canadian historian. Ruth Roach Pierson, Ian Radforth, Alison Prentice, and Richard Blackettĭr.

'Doing Battle in Freedom's Cause': Henry Bibb, Abolitionism, Race Uplift, and Black Manhood, 1842-1854 (May 2001)

The Hanging of Angelique by Afua Cooper