Cooper noticed early setbacks that included a high failure rate on state board examinations and low enrollment numbers. This led to many graduates taking positions within the federal government to avoid the need for state licensure.
Due to several closures, Howard and Xavier University of Louisiana were the only two pharmacy programs at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). In three years, Cooper was promoted to associate professor and named acting dean of the pharmacy program, and finally, dean in 1941.
Until his retirement in 1972, Cooper made great strides in pharmacy education. Cooper founded the National Pharmaceutical Association (NPhA), an organization dedicated to representing the views and ideals of minority pharmacists on critical issues affecting health care and pharmacy, as well as advancing the standards of pharmaceutical care among all practitioners.
Other minority leaders followed, including Ella P. Stewart, the first African-American woman graduate of the University of Pittsburgh College of Pharmacy and the first woman to practice with a license. Stewart owned a pharmacy with her pharmacist husband in Toledo, Ohio, that was also used as a community center.
In 1979, Mary Munson Runge was elected the first African-American and woman to serve as president of the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) at the time, representing some 60,000 pharmacists and students in the United States.
Several minority pharmacy professors have mentored students for over 50 years, including William B. Harrell at Texas Southern University, Robert Gibson at the University of California, San Francisco, and Kenneth R. Scott and Govind Kapadia, both at Howard University.
