Locality
Arlington County
Occupation
Civil Rights Activist
Biography
Dissatisfied with the inferior facilities and textbooks offered in the black schools in Arlington County, Esther Georgia Irving Cooper (November 28, 1881-February 7, 1970) worked to improve educational opportunities for African American children. In 1940 she organized and became the first president of the Arlington County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Two years later she joined the NAACP’s Virginia State Conference executive board. In collaboration with the state NAACP, the Arlington branch challenged inequalities in the county’s high school facilities. Their efforts culminated in Carter v. School Board of Arlington County (1950), in which the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the county’s separate high schools constituted unlawful racial discrimination.
As NAACP branch president Cooper supported initiatives to abolish the poll tax and wrote letters to Arlington officials protesting segregation on public transportation and in public facilities. She served as president of the Arlington chapter of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare and chaired the Eighth District Committee for Virginia. In 1947 Cooper ran for a seat on Arlington County’s Democratic Executive Committee, but she was one of six progressive candidates disqualified from appearing on the primary ballot for allegedly failing to comply with party regulations. A charter member of Arlington County’s chapter of the Virginia Council of Church Women, Cooper was for many years a vice president of the Lott Carey Foreign Mission Society. She helped organize the Jennie Dean Community Center Association, which in 1947 donated land for the Veterans Memorial Branch of the Young Men’s Christian Association. She retired as president of the Arlington County NAACP branch in 1951 but remained active as its president emerita.
2007 African American Trailblazers honoree, Library of Virginia.
As NAACP branch president Cooper supported initiatives to abolish the poll tax and wrote letters to Arlington officials protesting segregation on public transportation and in public facilities. She served as president of the Arlington chapter of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare and chaired the Eighth District Committee for Virginia. In 1947 Cooper ran for a seat on Arlington County’s Democratic Executive Committee, but she was one of six progressive candidates disqualified from appearing on the primary ballot for allegedly failing to comply with party regulations. A charter member of Arlington County’s chapter of the Virginia Council of Church Women, Cooper was for many years a vice president of the Lott Carey Foreign Mission Society. She helped organize the Jennie Dean Community Center Association, which in 1947 donated land for the Veterans Memorial Branch of the Young Men’s Christian Association. She retired as president of the Arlington County NAACP branch in 1951 but remained active as its president emerita.
2007 African American Trailblazers honoree, Library of Virginia.
File Citation(s)
Image Courtesy of Project DAPS, Arlington Public Library Community Archives.