Anna Cooper (1858-1964) taught Latin, math and science at M Street High School (and Dunbar, when the school was renamed) for nearly forty years. From 1901 to 1906, she was Principal of the school.

During her tenure as Principal, she broke the Ivy League barrier, gaining assurances from Harvard, Yale, and Brown Universities that her graduates would be considered for admittance if they passed an entrance examination.

Her unique house in LeDroit Park of yellow brick sports a wooden trim painted burgundy and green. There are porches on two sides with corkscrew columns, and a detached octagonal sun room on one corner. The house is marked by an historic plaque.

Cooper lived at this address from 1916 through her death at age 105. From 1930 to 1937, this was the site of many of the classes offered by Frelinghuysen University as well, when Cooper served as the university's second president. The school offered night classes to adult African-Americans whose work schedules might not otherwise permit them to attend school. She continued her own studies throughout adulthood, becoming the fourth African-American woman to earn a PhD in 1925, at the age of 66.

Cooper is the author of A Voice from the South (1892), a collection of essays widely considered the earliest book of African American feminism. Cooper taught and was principal at M Street High School, and later Freylinghuysen University. When she earned her PhD from the Sorbonne in 1924, she became the fourth African American woman with a doctoral degree. Cooper was in demand as an orator, and some of her most famous speeches were at the World’s Congress of Representative Women (Chicago, 1893), and the Pan-African Congress (London, 1900). She helped organize the Colored Woman’s League of Washington, the Colored Settlement House, and the DC Colored Young Women’s Christian Association.

Among the 12 famous Americans quoted in US passports, Cooper is the only woman. Her quote is:

"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."

She was also honored in 2009 with a commemorative US postage stamp.