My ancestors were African slaves—brought by force to a nation that proclaimed liberty but withheld it from them. Yet their spirit was never broken. Their faith was never silenced. One of them, my great-grandfather Nelson Cooper, was listed on the 1860 U.S. Census as a Preacher—a rare and sacred designation for a Black man at that time. He was a man of God, chosen and lifted in an era that tried to quiet men like him.
In 1863, he became a Union Soldier—Pvt. Nelson Cooper—after fleeing from slavery and enlisting in the 2nd U.S. Colored Infantry, Company H, answering both a military and moral calling. He was wounded in battle but survived—a war hero fighting for the freedom of all enslaved people. His life embodied divine purpose, courage, and the strength to stand for justice.
His grandson, my father Robert E. Cooper, carried this legacy forward with honor. He served as a Military Police officer during World War II, while other soldiers confronting tyranny abroad he had to endure systemic racism at home. His perseverance in the midst of racism as an MP in the United States Army—enduring the mistreatment of Black officers on base during World War II as our country fights Hitler and his regime in German this was a testimony in itself. The difficult duties to keep order, where white soldiers still called him “boy” and disregarded his title and occupation as an MP officer because of his race, divide military quarters for black MPs and white MPs existed did not break him. After the war, perhaps his greatest legacy lives in the home he built—with quiet strength and unwavering love.
Together with my mother, Vita M S Cooper, THE LORD created a household grounded in faith and compassion wrapped up in the racism of the 60s and struggles of poverty as my fathers janitor salary for a low income family was our only household income in the 70s. His salary according to the system was a little over the margin to receive food stamps as a working living in the household dad, whereas many of our neighbors where single parents of three or more children of one parent household. Throughout the years, we as a family grew in faith while standing in the midst of battling chaos with perseverance that produced endurance in the face of adversity that surrounded us on every side.
Born in the 1920s, Vita Sulton faced the harsh realities of racism and limited freedom for Black women in the South she tried to ignore the reality of racism existing during those days. She endured a failed marriage to her first husband Mr. Brown she married him at the age of 13 when puberty just started for her still a child herself married Mr Brown who himself was past eighteen years of age around the time frame of the late 30s early 40s An experience tragically common and permitted in those times—which produced her first four sons the first at the age of 14. During her divorce procedure, she lost three of those four sons to the father and took one with her the story behind their separation is mix on both sides of the family. Within the 13 years after her divorce from Mr. Brown, she sought to reclaim the youth she was never allowed to fully live.
She met Robert Cooper 13 years later after the divorce .as she began again, both of them working at Georgetown University. Their connection was built not just on love, but a respect and understanding through a time racism was the norm and The Civil Rights movement was on the move. They married and began a new chapter together. Vita became a stay-at-home mother, raising a total of six children under the same roof with her husband Robert E Cooper she gave birth to—a total of seven sons and three daughters— four of her sons were from the first marriage by the time she met my father those four were adults out on their own. The Cooper family consist of three sons, and three daughters totaling six within this household, with me being the youngest completing our family.
Though six of us were raised by my father Robert Cooper and my mother, two were not his genetically. My father loved and provided for each of us who lived in the household without distinction or hesitation. Dealing with racism and discrimination as a Military Police officer when he was enlisted in WWII could be the very reason he showed no distinctions. We never knew our separate biological ties until adulthood, because his love was seamless and unconditional.
He remained a working and law-abiding citizen, devoted to his wife and children until his passing in 1977 from colon cancer. Vita was with him in life—a woman whose strength was forged through fire and some times failed in the temptations of life with the pressures of bring up six children in a complex society we as children did not fully understand, but GOD gracefully uplifted everyone of us around her.
🕊️ Today, I Carry Their Legacy
For six years I have been battling Blood Cancer with oral chemotherapy daily, while still confronting, and seeing racism and discrimination in a nation my family helped shape and serve. Their journey through injustice, love, and perseverance—through THE HOLY SPIRIT who also guides our steps—is the foundation I stand on while I continue in the battle of trials and an uprising in racism written in recent unlawful decrees over a nation that is known as the land of the free. This is questionable at such a time as this when this nation is under a leadership actions who is trying to roll back time to the Jim Crow days.
We Do Not Celebrate the Fourth of July
That day speaks of freedom that was denied to my ancestors. Instead, we remember:
Juneteenth – where true emancipation of many slaves began
Indigenous Peoples’ Day – honoring those displaced and silenced
Our Family’s Sacred Journey – built on faith, truth, and unity
🔥 Freedom Lives in Our Testimony
Freedom lives not in a calendar date, but in the trials of my mother, the devotion of my father, the courage of my ancestors—and the love that still flows through our family today, powered in FAITH.
We are the firekeepers of a truth too deep for textbooks and too powerful for silence.
And through me—through my children, grandchildren, great-grandchild, and our future legacy rooted in CHRIST—we reclaim what freedom really means through, and by the power of The Holy Spirit, passed down through generations until the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, our Savior JESUS THE CHRIST comes again.
Amen!
In Sincerity of THE HOLY SPIRIT Sis. Seer Trudy
Watcher On The Wall