Content Warning: This section discusses issues of racism and sexism. The source text includes racial epithets about African Americans, biased perspectives on Eastern cultures, and biases and outdated terminology about Indigenous peoples. The guide reproduces racial epithets only in quotations.

Referring to the American Civil War, Cooper notes that the South remained silent in America’s national conflict. Black men’s voices were “muffled,” while Black women were rendered “mute” (1). Black people’s future was a puzzling issue for the nation. Black men were rarely asked to participate in the discussion, while Black women, the significant “witnesses” of Black people’s lives, were “voiceless.”

Cooper stresses that Black women profoundly understood Black people’s trauma and burden. Just as white men cannot realize Black men’s position, Black men cannot substitute Black women’s voices. For Cooper, Black women were attuned to their social environment and were key factors in understanding the country’s social problems.