Annie lee cooper biography books

civil rights activist

Annie Lee Cooper was an African-American civil rights activist in the Selma Voting Rights Movement who is best known for punching Selma Sheriff Jim Clark.

Background

Annie Lee Cooper was born on June 2, in Selma, Alabama, one of ten children of Lucy Jones and Charles Wilkerson Senior By the seventh grade, Cooper dropped out of school, and moved to Kentucky to live with an older sister.

Career

Appalled by the fact that although she had been a registered voter in Pennsylvania and Ohio she was unable to register to vote in Alabama, Cooper began to participate in the Civil Rights Movement.

Her attempt to register to vote in resulted in her being fired from her job as a nurse at a rest home. She then worked as a clerk at the Torch Motel.

In January , Cooper stood in line for hours outside the Dallas County Courthouse to register to vote until Sheriff Jim Clark ordered her to vacat