Monroe Dispatch - No Struggle, No Progress

Betty Ward Cooper

Continued from March 17, 2022

Betty Ward-Cooper, deserves recognition as a portrait of Women's Month. Her grandparents and parents lived and raised their families in the South under Jim Crow laws and yet succeeded as farmers, small business owners that included a water-well, small engine repair and seamstress businesses. She grew up during the era of segregated schools and public accommodations. Like other African Americans during those years she too experienced being denied a seat in a restaurant and movie theater because she was a Black American. Nevertheless, she d...