Heed Life's Demands: The Educational Philosophy of Fanny Jackson Coppin

Abstract

This article will discuss the educational philosophy and activities of Fanny Jackson Coppin, one of the most influential Black educators and community leaders of the late nineteenth century. During a period when discussions of women's education in the larger society embraced ornamental and female education, Fanny Jackson Coppin took the gentleman's course (the collegiate degree) at Oberlin College in 1865. Driven by a deep religious devotion helping her race through education, Fanny Coppin by the end of the century, headed one of the most prestigious Black academic institutions in the nation, the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia. Born a slave in 1837 in Washington, D.C., Fanny Jackson's freedom was bought during her early childhood by a devoted aunt, Mrs. Sarah Orr Clark. Fanny Jackson moved New Bedford, Massachusetts and later Newport, Rhode Island, in the 1850s live with relatives. Her desire obtain an education took on greater urgency as a result of the statement of antebellum Senator John C. Calhoun who made the alleged intellectual inferiority of Blacks the justification of slavery. Thus, as a teenager, Fanny Jackson pledged, to get an education and teach my people. Although academic excellence became a goal for her, Fanny Jackson also viewed it as imperative that education be linked with service the race.1 She frequently commented that knowledge is power. The first steps toward a higher education for Fanny Jackson came in the late 1850s at the Rhode Island State Normal School.