Marvel Cooke

Marvel Cooke (April 4, 1903 – November 29, 2000) was an American journalist, writer, and civil rights activist. She was the first African American woman to work at a mainstream white-owned newspaper.

Cooke was born in Mankato, Minnesota and graduated from the University of Minnesota. Settling in Harlem, New York, she worked as secretary for W. E. B. DuBois, the editor of the NAACP magazine, The Crisis.

She broke off her engagement to (later NAACP leader) Roy Wilkins because she thought him too conservative.

In the 1930s, Cooke helped create a local of The Newspaper Guild, participating in an eleven-week strike at the Amsterdam News. During the strike, she joined the Communist Party.

After stints on the Black newspapers, Amsterdam News and the People's Voice, she was hired as a journalist by the New York paper, the Compass. The following year, she described her experiences working as a domestic in white homes under the title, "I Was a Slave".

Cooke served as New York director of the Council of Arts, Sciences and Professions during the 1950s.

In the 1970s, she served as national treasurer of the Angela Davis Defense Fund.

She died of leukemia in New York, New York in 2000.

External links

• Marvel Cooke Dies at 99

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