One of the first Black alumnae of Oberlin College, she served as principal of the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia and became the first African American school superintendent in the United States.

[3] Fannie Jackson spent the rest of her youth in Newport, Rhode Island working as a servant for author George Henry Calvert, studying at every opportunity.

After almost a decade of missionary work, Fanny Jackson Coppin's declining health forced her to return to Philadelphia, and she died on January 21, 1913.

[4] Along with many other prominent Black Philadelphians, Jackson Coppin is buried at Merion Memorial Park in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.

As it was now time for the juniors to begin their work, the Faculty informed me that it was their purpose to give me a class, but I was to distinctly understand that if the pupils rebelled against my teaching, they did not intend to force it.

Fortunately for my training at the normal school, and my own dear love of teaching, tho there was a little surprise on the faces of some when they came into the class, and saw the teacher, there were no signs of rebellion.

"[7] During her years as a student at Oberlin College, she taught an evening course for free African Americans in reading and writing, and she graduated with a Bachelor's degree in 1865,[8] becoming one of only three black women to have done so by this time (the others were Mary Jane Patterson and Frances Josephine Norris).

In 1899, the Fannie Jackson Coppin Club was named in her honor for community oriented African American women in Alameda County.

To illustrate her point on Black economic independence, Jackson organized an effort to save The Christian Recorder from bankruptcy in 1879.

[12] On December 18, 1999, Coppin State University unveiled a bust in Jackson Coppin´s honor during their Centennial Celebration.