Book-It 'o11! Book #4
The Fifty Books Challenge, year three! (Years one and two, just in case you're curious.) This was a library request.
Title: A Century and Some Change: My Life Before the President Called My Name by Ann Nixon Cooper with Karen Grigsby Bates
Details: Copyright 2010, Atria Books
Synopsis (By Way of Front and Back Flaps): "President-elect Barack Obama reflected on the life of Ann Nixon Cooper on Tuesday, November 4, 2008, singling her out of millions of voters, he said, because she was "born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky, when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons-because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin."
Energized by this history-making presidential campaign, Mrs. Cooper now shares her story, her life before the president called her name, in her own voice, with the assistance of bestselling author Karen Grigsby Bates.
Mrs. Cooper is the beloved matriarch of a large and accomplished family who live throughout the country, and a long-celebrated elder in the city of Atlanta, Georgia, where she raised her children and has lived most of her long and extraordinary life. She was born and raised in Bedford County, Tennessee, near Nashville, on January 9, 1902. Her father was a tenant farmer, and her mother worked at home, taking care of the children.
She met her husband, Dr. Albert Berry Cooper II, while he attended Meharry Medical College in Nashville. They settled in his hometown of Atlanta, where he established a successful practice in dentistry.
When president-elect Obama referred to her in his speech, she became a celebrity, sought after by media from all over the world. In Mrs. Cooper's words, "All of a sudden, everyone wanted to talk to me. . . . It was nice they were interested, I guess,but I wasn't so thrilled that media and ordinary folk were acting as if the only exciting thing I'd ever done was vote for a black man for president. . . .I'd had a life before CNN and the rest 'discovered' me." And she is going to tell you about it."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I was moved by the story of Ann Nixon Cooper and was delighted that she'd gotten to tell her life story before she died.
How I Liked It: Karen Grigsby Bates has a deft hand to Cooper's story, standing back enough to let Cooper's voice come through, keeping the book organized of Cooper's stories to form a fascinating narrative.
The book reads like a conversation with Cooper, a witty intellectual with a pragmatic approach to her years of activism. The narrative is warmly personal, interspersed with Cooper's recollections of bits of quotidian from a bygone time (among them, she muses on the lack of stationary stores, once a common site, and recalls the novelty of having your photograph taken, a big event). The book is packed with personal photographs that add to the conversational feel, with Cooper's little notes about each picture (favorite outfits, funny facial expressions) that truly give the impression of her pointing these out over your shoulder. Her reflections on fashion (she held an interest and appreciation for it her whole life, turning up at her 102nd birthday party in a cranberry velvet suit with white leather high-heeled boots; "Just because I was turning one hundred two didn't mean I was going to dress like an old lady!") aren't just charming and quirky, they're inspirational, particularly in her later years.
She interacts with famous figures in history in her similar warm, staid fashion, recalling Martin Luther King Junior's father "Daddy King", the practical and elegant nature of Coretta Scott King, the charm of Nat King Cole (among several celebrated Black entertainers who frequently stayed at the Coopers' gorgeous, self-made house during segregation), the devoted and just Robert Kennedy, and scores of other politicians both local and national that came to be a part of Cooper's life.
It's not just that Cooper was an inspiring pioneer with an engaging personality, it's that this is the rare book that pays proper tribute to such a person. It's a must-read story of Americana, wisdom, and history, and an extremely entertaining one.
Notable: Cooper focuses on her work for civil rights for Blacks and downplays her feminism ("I've always thought women should own property," she muses in one chapter) and perhaps with good reason. Sadly, the so-called "first wave" of feminists of which Cooper would fit due to her age had prominent figures that held racist beliefs (not unlike the homophobic beliefs inherent in the second wave-- I like to think we in the third wave have learned the lessons of the first two). Despite her underscoring her feminist beliefs, Cooper is no less an inspiration feminist figure, a woman who had an equal say in her marriage, insisted on having a job as well as her husband, and expresses admiration throughout the book for "stubborn" women, among them her aunt and cousin, also pioneers of women in the workplace.
Title: A Century and Some Change: My Life Before the President Called My Name by Ann Nixon Cooper with Karen Grigsby Bates
Details: Copyright 2010, Atria Books
Synopsis (By Way of Front and Back Flaps): "President-elect Barack Obama reflected on the life of Ann Nixon Cooper on Tuesday, November 4, 2008, singling her out of millions of voters, he said, because she was "born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky, when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons-because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin."
Energized by this history-making presidential campaign, Mrs. Cooper now shares her story, her life before the president called her name, in her own voice, with the assistance of bestselling author Karen Grigsby Bates.
Mrs. Cooper is the beloved matriarch of a large and accomplished family who live throughout the country, and a long-celebrated elder in the city of Atlanta, Georgia, where she raised her children and has lived most of her long and extraordinary life. She was born and raised in Bedford County, Tennessee, near Nashville, on January 9, 1902. Her father was a tenant farmer, and her mother worked at home, taking care of the children.
She met her husband, Dr. Albert Berry Cooper II, while he attended Meharry Medical College in Nashville. They settled in his hometown of Atlanta, where he established a successful practice in dentistry.
When president-elect Obama referred to her in his speech, she became a celebrity, sought after by media from all over the world. In Mrs. Cooper's words, "All of a sudden, everyone wanted to talk to me. . . . It was nice they were interested, I guess,but I wasn't so thrilled that media and ordinary folk were acting as if the only exciting thing I'd ever done was vote for a black man for president. . . .I'd had a life before CNN and the rest 'discovered' me." And she is going to tell you about it."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I was moved by the story of Ann Nixon Cooper and was delighted that she'd gotten to tell her life story before she died.
How I Liked It: Karen Grigsby Bates has a deft hand to Cooper's story, standing back enough to let Cooper's voice come through, keeping the book organized of Cooper's stories to form a fascinating narrative.
The book reads like a conversation with Cooper, a witty intellectual with a pragmatic approach to her years of activism. The narrative is warmly personal, interspersed with Cooper's recollections of bits of quotidian from a bygone time (among them, she muses on the lack of stationary stores, once a common site, and recalls the novelty of having your photograph taken, a big event). The book is packed with personal photographs that add to the conversational feel, with Cooper's little notes about each picture (favorite outfits, funny facial expressions) that truly give the impression of her pointing these out over your shoulder. Her reflections on fashion (she held an interest and appreciation for it her whole life, turning up at her 102nd birthday party in a cranberry velvet suit with white leather high-heeled boots; "Just because I was turning one hundred two didn't mean I was going to dress like an old lady!") aren't just charming and quirky, they're inspirational, particularly in her later years.
She interacts with famous figures in history in her similar warm, staid fashion, recalling Martin Luther King Junior's father "Daddy King", the practical and elegant nature of Coretta Scott King, the charm of Nat King Cole (among several celebrated Black entertainers who frequently stayed at the Coopers' gorgeous, self-made house during segregation), the devoted and just Robert Kennedy, and scores of other politicians both local and national that came to be a part of Cooper's life.
It's not just that Cooper was an inspiring pioneer with an engaging personality, it's that this is the rare book that pays proper tribute to such a person. It's a must-read story of Americana, wisdom, and history, and an extremely entertaining one.
Notable: Cooper focuses on her work for civil rights for Blacks and downplays her feminism ("I've always thought women should own property," she muses in one chapter) and perhaps with good reason. Sadly, the so-called "first wave" of feminists of which Cooper would fit due to her age had prominent figures that held racist beliefs (not unlike the homophobic beliefs inherent in the second wave-- I like to think we in the third wave have learned the lessons of the first two). Despite her underscoring her feminist beliefs, Cooper is no less an inspiration feminist figure, a woman who had an equal say in her marriage, insisted on having a job as well as her husband, and expresses admiration throughout the book for "stubborn" women, among them her aunt and cousin, also pioneers of women in the workplace.