Fanny Jackson Coppin (1837-1913) was the second African American woman in the United States to earn a BA degree when she graduated from Oberlin College in 1865 after having taken the "gentlemen's course" which included Latin, Greek, and "as much mathematics as one could shoulder". She began teaching at the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia (now Cheyney State University) and was soon promoted to principal and then superintendent, the first African American woman in the country to fill such positions. She was also active in the AME church, serving as president of the Women's Home and Foreign Mission Society.
In 1881 she married Rev. Levi Jenkins Coppin, pastor of Bethel AME in Baltimore, who later was made a bishop. The couple spent ten years as missionaries in South Africa where they established mission houses in Cape Town and smaller villages.
Read more about her here http://docsouth.unc.edu/highlights/coppin.html
