Coralie Franklin Cook

Coralie Franklin Cook (March 1861 – August 25, 1942) was an African-American educator, public speaker, and government official. She is also the first known descendant among those enslaved at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello estate to graduate from college. Cook, along with Mary Church Terrell, Anna J. Cooper, Angelina Weld Grimke, and Nannie Helen Burroughs, "exemplified the third generation of African American woman suffragists who related to both the Black and the white worlds."

Early life Coralie Franklin was born in Lexington, Virginia in March 1861. Coralie was the younger of two daughters from Albert Barbour Franklin and Mary Elizabeth Edmondson, both of whom were enslaved by a Southern aristocratic family. Franklin's maternal great-grandfather, Brown Colbert, was a former slave and nailer at the Monticello estate. Colbert was the son of Betty Brown and the grandson of Elizabeth Hemings.

Franklin had one older sister named Mary Elizabeth. In 1870, their father, Albert Franklin, a "very well respected man amongst his community", placed his two daughters in the Storer Normal School at Harpers Ferry. At the time, Storer was administered as a Normal Academy and was the only institution for higher learning available for African Americans in West Virginia. While in school, Coralie Franklin showed a talent for literary studies and reading. She was so proficient in reading that, as a child, it became a special attraction for her to read out loud at public gatherings. She graduated from Storer College in 1880, the first known college graduate among the descendants of Jefferson's slaves at Monticello. In 1881, Franklin continued her education through institutions in Boston and Philadelphia where she studied elocution. In 1913, Franklin became one of the first four Honorary Members of Delta Sigma Theta sorority

Career and social activism In the years following her graduation, Franklin Cook taught elocution and English at Storer College as an assistant professor from 1882 until 1893. She also taught a year of school in Hannibal, Missouri, before she and colleague Mary Church Terrell moved to Washington, D.C., to seek careers in education. and was a professor at the Washington Conservatory of Music. She served on the Board of Education in Washington D. C., the second African-American woman after Terrell to hold that appointment. Additionally, she spent five years as Director of the Home for Colored Children and Aged Women in Washington, D. C. She and Terrell were active members of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and part of the association's inner circles. and was elected president of the Washington Artists' Association. She spent five years as head of the Home for Colored Orphans and Aged Women in Washington D. C.

Speeches and presentations Franklin Cook was a powerful public speaker.

Franklin Cook spoke at the Colored Women's League convention in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1895,

Personal life In 1884, Franklin purchased a home in Harpers Ferry at 509 Fillmore Street. Franklin purchased the home from Storer College where she was teaching at that time. A professor and Dean of the school at Howard University. The Cook's had one son named George William Cook Jr. on Dec. 15, 1901.

Franklin Cook and her husband were married for 33 years until George died on August 20, 1931. Coralie Franklin Cook died in 1942, at 81 years of age.

Baháʼí Faith Franklin Cook was an adherent of the Baháʼí Faith, and represented the Baháʼí Faith among the black intellectual community in Washington, D.C. since 1910, and formally converted around 1913. Many Baháʼí activities in the Washington, D.C. area were organized and influenced by Franklin Cook. She felt the beliefs of this faith would benefit young African Americans by helping them realize their potential and provide them with a more positive outlook on life.