Considered one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s crowning moments in building racial equality, he was accompanied by Annie Lee Cooper, without whose tireless efforts many Black Americans might not have the right to vote today.
When Annie Lee Cooper was waiting in line to cast her ballot outside the Selma Dallas County courthouse in January 1965, a police officer approached her and tried to stop her from performing her civic duty. Cooper is notorious for punching the cop in the face after he prodded her in the neck with his baton.
Despite being mostly absent from the typical American classroom, Cooper gained some notoriety when Selma, the Academy Award–winning film that featured her tale, was released in 2014. Only four years had passed since her death at the age of 100 when the movie came out, and none other than Oprah Winfrey brought her story to life.
This is the real-life story of activist, revolutionary, and champion of voting rights Annie Lee Cooper.
Annie Lee Cooper’s Childhood In Jim Crow America
Cooper, an only child of Lucy Jones and Charles Wilkerson Sr., was born Annie Lee Wilkerson in Selma, Alabama, on June 2, 1910. Cooper completed the seventh grade of school before quitting and moving in with one of her sisters in Kentucky. She later relocated to Pennsylvania.
Cooper was born during a perilous juncture in American history. No matter their socioeconomic standing, Black men and women were unable to vote in 1901 under the recently enacted Alabama constitution.
Legal experts concur now that the main aim of this constitution was to formalize white dominance in the state. However, white Alabamans at the time mostly accepted its conditions.
Cooper discovered that there were states where Black people could vote despite growing up in a state where they couldn’t. Cooper became motivated by this difference and set out on a quest to the voting booth.
Becoming A Civil Rights Activist
To take care of her elderly mother, Annie Lee Cooper traveled back to Selma, Alabama, in 1962. However, when she arrived, she discovered that Black men and women continued to be denied the right to vote.
In order to mobilize Black men and women to petition for voting rights, American civil rights activist Bernard Lafayette and his wife Colia Liddell arrived in Alabama about the same time. The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which the newlyweds were representing, appealed to young Cooper right away.
Cooper would repeatedly recount how, in order to register to vote in Alabama, she had to take a “voting test,” a Jim Crow-era literacy test that was impossible to pass. However, she consistently failed the test, as was planned by the system each time.
“Once, I was in line starting at 7 a.m. but never managed to register,” she claimed.
Therefore, Annie Lee Cooper joined the SNCC in 1963, armed with the activist experience she had garnered through working with the Dallas County Voter’s League. Her day job dismissed her when they learned about her new activism.
Cooper, unfazed, took a position as a clerk at a motel. She subsequently joined the growing civil rights movement as an official member. The movement, which was characterized by nonviolent protest and nonviolent marches, was founded in large part to combat the dangers of white supremacy in the American South.
When Annie Lee Cooper attempted to register to vote in Selma, Alabama once more in January 1965, she earned her place in American history.
But white Sheriff Jim Clark stopped her when she arrived at the polling place. It would turn out to be among the Sheriff’s biggest errors of judgment.
Cooper, unfazed, took a position as a clerk at a motel. She subsequently joined the growing civil rights movement as an official member. The movement, which was characterized by nonviolent protest and nonviolent marches, was founded in large part to combat the dangers of white supremacy in the American South.
When Annie Lee Cooper attempted to register to vote in Selma, Alabama once more in January 1965, she earned her place in American history.
But white Sheriff Jim Clark stopped her when she arrived at the polling place. It would turn out to be among the Sheriff’s biggest errors of judgment.
Punching Sheriff Jim Clark
James Gardner Clark Jr., the sheriff of Dallas County, Alabama, has a track record for being a rough individual. He enlisted the Ku Klux Klan to prevent Black Alabamans from casting ballots, beat and detained peaceful protesters with great violence, and even stabbed Black people with cattle prods.
He was praised for his “publicity services delivered” after The Washington Post released pictures of Clark assaulting civil rights activist Amelia Boynton.
When Clark ultimately passed away in 2007, The Washington Post’s obituary almost seemed to celebrate his passing due to his abhorrent actions. “Mr. The story stated that Clark “seemed to relish confrontation.” “He at least struck C.T., an organizer. He then claimed he did not remember punching Vivian in the face, although an X-ray revealed a linear fracture in a finger on his left hand.
But when Clark prodded Cooper’s neck with his billy club in January 1965, presumably as a prelude to something worse, he received a taste of his own medicine. In response, Cooper gave him what is now jokingly referred to as a “two-piece and a biscuit.”
She recalled, “I was just standing there when his deputies told a man with us to move and when he didn’t, they tried to kick him.” “That’s when Clark and I started arguing. I make an effort to act nonviolently, but I can’t say I wouldn’t act the same way again if they treated me harshly like they did this time.
Cooper was detained for clocking Sheriff Clark, probably in accordance with the law. But she was almost immediately released after Clark threatened to beat her while she was in custody.
It wasn’t in vain that she confronted him. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was eventually approved shortly after, thanks to the tireless efforts of Cooper, her contemporaries, and Martin Luther King Jr.
Annie Lee Cooper’s Death At 100
In her final years, Cooper lived a very calm and laid-back life in Selma, where her hometown named a roadway Annie Cooper Avenue in honor of her commitment to the civil rights fight on the occasion of her 100th birthday.
Her loving mother had lived to be 106, so according to her relatives, Cooper planned to live many longer.
Sadly, Annie Lee Cooper passed away on November 24, 2010, at the Selma, Alabama, Vaughan Regional Medical Center. Although she didn’t survive very long after turning 100, her impact on American history will never be forgotten.
