Dorothy Musuleng-Cooper

Dorothy Harriet Eugenia Musuleng Cooper (also known as "D-Mus," September 9, 1930 – June 30, 2009) was a Liberian educator, politician and the first woman to serve as Foreign Minister in Liberia. She was born at Arthington, Liberia and obtained her B.S. and M.S. from College of West Africa and San Francisco State University respectively. She worked as a school teacher between graduation and high school and matriculation in 1964 in San Francisco in 1964, curriculum development in the Ministry of Education, and principal of Cuttington University College. She was an education minister in Charles Taylor's shadow government from 1990 to 1993 in the National Patriotic Reconstruction Assembly Government

During 1994, she was appointed as the Vice-chairperson of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, the guerilla movement of Charles Taylor. In 1994, she was appointed as Foreign Minister of Liberia during the period of civil war. In 2001, Taylor's government established a Ministry of Gender and Development (MoGD) and appointed Cooper as the first minister to that position and continued till 2005. She died on June 30, 2009, at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital in Monrovia and was survived by four of her eight biological children.