Fanny Jackson Coppin was born on January 8th, 1837 in Washington D.C, and died on January 21, 1913. He was African American educator, principal, and missionary to Africa. Fanny was born as a slave and purchased by her aunt, during this time she only received very little education when she could. She obtained her education from Rhode Island State Normal School and Oberlin College. She created a night school to educate freed slaves after the Civil War and after she graduated she started to teach at the Institute for Colored Youth as a highschool teacher. After four years of teaching there she became the principal of the institute making her the first African American to receive the title. Coppin was a strong believer in women’s education and status in the world, she created the Women’s Industrial Exchange to promote women’s artistic and mechanical work, and she housed working poor women. After marrying her husband Rev. Levi J. Coppin she became a missionary, going to Cape Town, South Africa to start her missionary work by counseling African Women.
Today Coppin’s legacy still lives on, ever heard of the college Coppin State University? If so, you will be delighted to know that the historically black college is named after this extraordinary woman.