Afua Cooper

Afua Cooper studied at University of Toronto and Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is Black Canadian studies, African American literature and history. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are reggae. Residence is recorded at Toronto. Employment is recorded with University of Toronto and Dalhousie University. Positions recorded include founder and chairperson. Distinctions recorded are J. Tyrrell Historical Medal, Nova Scotia Human Rights Award and Atlantic Poetry Prize.

• Born — 8 November 1957 • Birthplace — Westmoreland, Jamaica • Alma Mater — University of Toronto • Occupation — Historian, author, dub poet • Thesis Title — "Doing Battle in Freedom's Cause": Henry Bibb, Abolitionism, Race Uplift, and Black Manhood, 1842-1854 • Awards — Portia White Prize (2020) • Thesis Year — May 2001 • Doctoral Advisor — Franca Iacovetta • Academic Advisors — Ruth Roach Pierson, Ian Radforth, Alison Prentice, and Richard Blackett

Cooper was born 8 November 1957 in Westmoreland, Jamaica to Edward and Ruth Campbell Cooper and had eight siblings—five sisters and three brothers. She is a descendant of Alison Parkinson, who was sold into West Indian slavery. Descendants on her father's side of the family worked as slaves on William Cooper's Whithorn sugar plantation. Between ages three and eight, Cooper moved in with her aunt, Elfleda Campbell, in Kingston, Jamaica, where she studied at St. Michael's All-Age School and Camperdown High School. By the time she graduated in 1975, Cooper had founded an African Studies Club at her school and had become a Rastafarian. After graduation, she moved in with Mutabaruka and his wife, Yvonne Peters for a year. In 1976, she received a teaching certificate from Excelsior Community College. In 1980, Cooper migrated to Toronto due to civil unrest in Jamaica. Her first son, Akil, was born the following year. In 1983, Cooper enrolled at the University of Toronto, where she majored in African studies. In 1990, she returned to complete a Master of Arts degree, studying Black Canadian history. In 2000, she earned a PhD in African-Canadian history with specialties in slavery and abolition. 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. Her dissertation served as inspiration for the Canadian government "to designate Bibb a person of national historic significance." Cooper's marriage dissolved in 1986. In 1988, Cooper became a Muslim.

Before moving to Canada, Cooper taught at Vauxhall Secondary School for a year. Upon arrival in Toronto, she taught at Bickford Park High School. Beginning in 2004, Cooper began teaching African Canadian history and women's history at University of Toronto. In 2009, she helped establish the Black Canadian Studies Association. In 2011, Cooper was named to the James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies at Dalhousie University. In 2016, she led the creation of a minor program in black and African diaspora studies at Dalhousie.

Breaking Chains, Cooper's first book of poetry, as published in 1983. In 1988, Cooper became a residency fellow at the Banff School of Fine Arts and wrote two books of poetry, The Red Caterpillar on College Street, which was published in 1989, and Memories Have Tongue, which was published in 1992. Both books were published by Sister Vision Press. Memories Have Tongue went on to become a finalist for the 1992 Casa de las Américas Prize. In 1990, Cooper opened the festivities in Queen's Park, Toronto celebrating the release of Nelson Mandela from prison; the crowd for her performance is estimated to have included 25,000 people. Later in the year, she toured Senegal and Gambia. She is the co-author of We're Rooted Here and They Can't Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women's History (1994). She has also released two albums of her poetry. In 2002, Cooper helped found the Dub Poets' Collective, "the only grassroots poetry organization in Canada". Published in 2006, The Hanging of Angelique tells the story of an enslaved African Marie-Joseph Angelique who was executed in Montreal at a time when Quebec was under French colonial rule. It was shortlisted for the 2006 Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction. In 2009, Cooper published two historical novels for children about real historical figures, both published by Kids Can Press: My name is Henry Bibb: a story of slavery and freedom; and My name is Phillis Wheatley: a story of slavery and freedom, both published in 2009 by Kids Can Press. In 2018, she was named poet laureate for the city of Halifax, holding the role until 2020.