Mary McLeod Bethune

Born Mary Jane McLeod on July 10, 1875, in Mayesville, South Carolina, Mary was a leading educator and civil rights activist. She grew up in poverty, as one of 17 children born to former slaves. Everyone in the family worked, and many worked in the fields picking cotton. Mary became the only child in her family to go to school when a missionary opened a school nearby for African American children. Traveling miles each way, she walked to school each day and did her best to share what she learned with her family.

Mary received a scholarship to the Scotia Seminary (now Barber-Scotia College), a school for girls in Concord, North Carolina. After graduating in 1893, she went to the Dwight Moody's Institute for Home and Foreign Missions in Chicago. Mary returned to the South after she completed her degree, two years later, to begin her career as a teacher.

Mary married fellow teacher Albertus Bethune in 1898. The couple had one son together before their divorce in 1907. She believed that education provided the key to racial advancement. Bethune founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls in Daytona, Florida, in 1904. Starting out with only five students, she helped grow the school to more 250 students over the next few years.

Bethune served as the school's president, and she remained its leader even after it was combined with the Cookman Institute for Men in 1923. The merged institution became known as the Bethune-Cookman College. The college was one of the few places that African American students could pursue a college degree. Bethune stayed with the college until 1942.

In addition to her work at the school, Bethune did much to contribute to American society at large. She served as the president of the Florida chapter of the National Association of Colored Women for many years. Bethune worked to register black voters, which was resisted by white society and had been made almost impossible by a variety of obstacles in Florida law and practices controlled by white administrators. She was threatened by the Ku Klux Klan in those years. Bethune also served as the president of the Southeastern Federation of Colored Women's Clubs from 1920 to 1925, which worked to improve opportunities for black women.

Bethune was elected as national president of the NACW in 1924. While the organization struggled to raise funds for regular operations, Bethune envisioned its acquiring a headquarters and hiring a professional executive secretary; she implemented this when NACW bought a property in Washington, DC. She led it to be the first black-controlled organization with headquarters in the capital.

Gaining a national reputation, Bethune began lending her expertise to several presidents. In 1928 Bethune was invited to attend the Child Welfare Conference called by Republican President Calvin Coolidge. In 1930 President Herbert Hoover appointed her to the White House Committee on Child Health and the Commission on Home Building and Home Ownership. But her most significant roles in public service came from President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In 1935, Bethune became a special advisor to President Roosevelt on minority affairs. In addition to her official role in the Roosevelt administration, Bethune became a trusted friend and adviser to both the president and his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt. That same year, she also started up her own civil rights organization, the National Council of Negro Women. Bethune created this organization to represent numerous groups working on critical issues for African American women. She received another appointment from President Roosevelt the following year. In 1936, she became the director of the Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration. The NYA focused on unemployed citizens aged sixteen to twenty-five years who were not in school. Bethune lobbied the organization aggressively and effectively for minority involvement. As Director of the Division of Negro Affairs, she was the first African American female division head. She managed NYA funds to help black students through school-based programs. She was the only black agent of the NYA who was a financial manager. She ensured black colleges participation in the Civilian Pilot Training Program, which graduated some of the first black pilots.

Bethune’s determination helped national officials recognize the need to improve employment for black youth. The NYA’s report issued in 1943 stated "more than 300,000 black young men and women were given employment and work training on NYA projects. These projects opened to these youth, training opportunities and enabled the majority of them to qualify for jobs heretofore closed to them." Within the administration, Bethune advocated for the appointment of black NYA officials to positions of political power. Her administrative assistants served as liaisons between the National Division of Negro Affairs and the NYA agencies on the state and local levels. They helped gain better job and salary opportunities for African Americans across the country. During her tenure, Bethune also pushed federal officials to approve a program of consumer education for African Americans, and a foundation for black crippled children.

In 1943, Mary Mcleod Bethune moved to the new National Council of Negro Women headquarters in Washington, D.C. She represented the NAACP at the 1945 conference on the founding of the United Nations along with W.E.B. DuBois. In the early 1950s, President Harry Truman appointed her to a committee on national defense and appointed her to serve as an official delegate to a presidential inauguration in Liberia.

Eventually returning to Florida in her retirement, Bethune died on May 18, 1955, in Daytona, Florida. She is remembered for her work to advance the rights of both African Americans and women. Before her death, Bethune wrote "My Last Will and Testament," which served as a reflection on her own life and legacy in addition to addressing a few estate matters. Among her list of spiritual gifts, she wrote "I leave you a thirst for education. Knowledge is the prime need of the hour…If I have a legacy to leave my people, it is my philosophy of living and serving."