Dr. Afua Cooper was born in Westmoreland, Jamaica in 1957. A highly accomplished scholar, Dr. Cooper is an educator, speaker, historian, author, poet, performer, and cultural commentator. She moved to Canada in 1980, starting her career path as an instructor at Bickford Park High School in Toronto, Ontario. During this time, Dr. Cooper began performing her poetry work in Toronto’s spoken word scene at venues such as Fall Out Shelter, Strictly Ital, and Trojan Horse, later joining Gayap Riddim Drummers as resident poet and percussionist.

As an author, Dr. Cooper published her first book of poetry in 1983 titled Breaking Chains, followed by The Red Caterpillar on College Street in 1989, and Memories Have Tongue in 1992. Canada received its first history of slavery written in English with the release of Dr. Coopers non-fiction book, The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the burning of Old Montréal, based on the trial record of Marie-Joseph Angélique.

Dr. Cooper has advised Parks Canada on Black history and curated and worked on eight exhibits including The Underground Railroad, Next Stop Freedom, Enslaved Africans in Upper Canada, and The Transatlantic Slave Trade. Her contributions to the education of Canadians on the topic of Black history are immeasurable. She initiated an interdisciplinary Black and African Diaspora Studies minor to Dalhousie University (Halifax, N.S.), established the Black Canadian Studies Association in Vancouver in 2009, and held the role of James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Dalhousie University from 2011 to 2017.

Dr. Cooper’s merits in poetry include opening the Nelson Mandela celebration in Queen’s Park, Toronto (1990), organizing the first International Dub Poetry Festival and Conference in Toronto (1993), she is a founding member of the only Canadian grassroots poetry organization – Toronto Dub Poet’s Collective (2002), and Halifax’s 7th Poet Laureate from 2018 – 2020.

Dr. Cooper was chosen as one of Essence Magazine’s 25 Women Who are Shaping the World in the October 2005 issue. A decade later, she was presented with the Nova Scotia Human Rights Award in 2015 by the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission. She became Canada’s representative for the UNESCO International Scientific Committee’s Routes of Enslaved Peoples project in 2020.

Awards

• Portia White Prize (2020)
• Nova Scotia Human Rights Award (2015)
• Harry Jerome Award for Professional Excellence (2005)
• Academic Leadership Award from the University of Toronto (2004)
• Ontario Historical Society’s Joseph Brant Award for History (1994)
• Canadian Government Award for Contribution to Black Alumni
• J.M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Prize
• The Bob Marley Award
• Finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Prize