Maudine R. Cooper, a civil rights advocate and a native of Mississippi who worked for three D.C. mayors before becoming President of the Greater Washington Urban League has died. She was 82.
“It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of our beloved Maudine Cooper, a leader whose impact will reverberate well beyond her lifespan,” the Urban League said in a statement after passing. “Today, we mourn the loss of a visionary whose legacy will forever inspire and guide us.”
For 23 years, Cooper served as president and CEO of the Greater Washington Urban League. Under her leadership, she expanded the organization from the District into Maryland reaching Prince George’s County and Montgomery County.
“Maudine Cooper was a dear friend and mentor. On behalf of our Board of Directors and staff, thank you for your service and commitment to the movement. You will always be loved and missed,” said current Greater Washington Urban League President and CEO George H. Lambert Jr.
“Maudine R. Cooper’s loving heart and legacy will continue to inspire us as we will always honor her memory and strive to uphold the values she so passionately championed,” added Lambert, who offered condolences and words of encouragement to the Cooper family.
In 2000 Cooper, with several million in grants and funds rescued an abandoned funeral home at 2901 Fourteenth Street, NW, and transformed it from blight in a part of the city gutted during the 1968 riots after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and restored as the new headquarters for the Urban League.
“It looked like bombed-out Beirut,” Cooper told Washington Post reporter Yolanda Woodlee in her story about the ribbon for the renovated building. “I couldn’t envision this.”
On that day in 2004, Marc H. Morial, president of the National Urban League, then D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams, and former D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) were all present as they walked into a building that received a $4.2 million resurrection.
For the Government of the District of Columbia, Cooper served as a senior department leader under three mayoral administrations: Marion Barry, Adrian Fenty, and Vincent Gray.
Cooper was born on September 30, 1941, in Benoit, Mississippi. Like so many Black families at the time, her family soon moved north to St. Paul, Minnesota, in search of a better life.
Cooper was accepted at Howard University where she graduated with a degree in Business Administration in 1964 and her Juris Doctorate from Howard in 1971.
During the Civil Rights Movement, the National Urban League played a key role in integrating the South and improving the quality of life for generations of African Americans. In 1973, Cooper joined the National Urban League and in 1973 she became assistant director for Federal Programs and became vice President for the Washington Operations Legislative Office in 1980.
Colleagues remember Cooper as having a joyous personality. She loved working with the Urban League because it provided her the opportunity to put her legal training and her commitment to social justice into action.
In 1983, Cooper left her post at the National Urban League to join the D.C., government as director of the Office of Human Rights under Barry.
During her legal career, Cooper took on several high-profile cases. In 1987 she was appointed to head the Minority Business Opportunity Commission. Then in 1989, Barry approached her to become his Chief of Staff. She served in this position for the last two years of his third term.
In 1990, Cooper began serving as prresident and CEO of the Greater Washington Urban League, an affiliate of the National Urban League and an organization devoted to education and training, housing and community development, and services for the aging and the environment.
Cooper was a member of numerous organizations and boards, such as the District of Columbia Bar Association, the NAACP, the D.C. Agenda Project, and Leadership Washington.
In 1992, Cooper received the prestigious Isaiah Award for the Pursuit of Justice, presented by the Washington, D.C. Chapter of the American Jewish Committee, and in 1998, she was named McDonald’s Black History Maker of Today in the Washington, D.C., area.
A tribute to Miss Maudine Cooper
I remember Ms. Cooper. she was appointed the head of the minority business commission shortly after I came into the district government in 1985. I worked in the reeve center at 14th and U streets Northwest. Miss Cooper was a strong, positive, charismatic force and a great inspiration for me as a southern lady, eager, willing, and able to undertaker the position of a public servant for the citizens of Washington, DC. she exemplified what was instilled in me at a very early age… to be up right, honest, hard-working and fair. let your light shine before others so that they can see the good in you, to be grateful for each day that you are given, to dare to go where no man has gone before for the good and to do it with humility and honor knowing that it’s the God in you that leads and directs you. as a young woman from South Carolina, I looked up to her. she became one of my great mentors and gave me confirmation that I was on the right path. I can feel her spirit and see her smiling face now. she definitely touched my life and left a cherished impression. she will live on in spirit with the legacy that she leaves and all the other lives she touched. I send my prayers and condolences to her family and loved ones. what a life. what a memory water legend. ❤️
Though I didn’t know Ms. Cooper personally, growing up in Alexandria politics and as a volunteer, I would regularly see her at community events in the DMV. She always walked with a special kind of authority and grace. Even as a child, I knew she was a special force and bright light. Rest easy servant of God!