Mary McLeod Bethune

SOUTH CAROLINA HALL OF FAME
Teacher Guide
Mary McLeod Bethune
South Carolina Social Studies Standards
Mary McLeod Bethune
Early 20th Century-(all 4)
Late 20th and Early 21st Centuries-The Civil Rights Movement
Topics include: Bethune Institute for Girls, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, WWII, Franklin
Roosevelt's black cabinet, Segregation, Jim Crow laws
Standard 3-5: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the major developments in
South Carolina in the late nineteenth and twentieth century.
3-5.1 - Summarize the social and economic impact of developments in agriculture, industry, and
technology, including the creation of Jim Crow laws, the rise and fall of textile markets, and the
expansion of the railroad.
3-5.4 - Summarize the social and economic impact of World War II and the Cold War on South
Carolina, including the end of the Great Depression, improvements in modern conveniences,
increased opportunities for women and African Americans, and the significance of the opening
and eventual closing of military bases.
3-5.5 - Summarize the development of economic, political, and social opportunities of African
Americans in South Carolina, including the end of Jim Crow laws, the desegregation of schools
(Briggs v. Elliott) and other public facilities; and efforts of African Americans to achieve the right
to vote.
Standard 5-4: The student will demonstrate an understanding of American economic
challenges in the 1920s and 1930s and world conflict in the 1940s.
5-4.7 - Summarize the social and political impact of World War II on the American home front
and the world, including opportunities for women and African Americans in the work place, the
internment of Japanese Americans, and changes in national boundaries and governments.
Standard 8-6: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the role of South Carolina in
the nation in the early twentieth century.
8-6.4 - Explain the effects of the Great Depression and the lasting impact of the New Deal on
people and programs in South Carolina, including James F. Byrnes and Mary McLeod Bethune,
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the Rural Electrification Act, the general textile strike of 1934, the Civilian Conservation Corps,
the Works Progress Administration, the Public Works Administration, the Social Security Act,
and the Santee Cooper electricity project.
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Biographies
Mary McLeod Bethune
Mary Jane McLeod Bethune (born Mary Jane McLeod; July 10, 1875 – May 18, 1955) was an American
educator and life rights leader best known for starting a private school for African-American students in
Daytona Beach, Florida. She attracted donations of time and money, and developed the academic
school as a college. It later continued to develop as Bethune-Cookman University. She also was
appointed as a national adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She was known as "The First Lady of
The Struggle” because of her commitment to give the African Americans a better life.
Born in Mayesville, South Carolina, to parents who had been slaves, she started working in fields at age
five. She took an early interest in becoming educated; with the help of benefactors, Bethune attended
college hoping to become a missionary in Africa. She started a school for African-American girls in
Daytona Beach, Florida. It later merged with a private institute for African-American boys, and was
known as the Bethune-Cookman School. Bethune maintained high standards and promoted the school
with tourists and donors, to demonstrate what educated African Americans could do. She was president
of the college from 1923 to 1942, and 1946 to 1947. She was one of the few women in the world to
serve as a college president at that time.
Bethune was also active in women's clubs, and became a national leader. After working on the
presidential campaign for Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, she was invited as a member of his Black
Cabinet. She advised him on concerns of black people and helped share Roosevelt's message and
achievements with blacks, who had historically been Republican voters since the Civil War. Upon her
death, columnist Louis E. Martin said, "She gave out faith and hope as if they were pills and she some
sort of doctor."
Honors include designation of her home in Daytona Beach as a National Historic Landmark, her house in
Washington, D.C. as a National Historic Site, and the placement of a sculpture of her in Lincoln Park
located in Washington, D.C.
Biography from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_McLeod_Bethune
Born near Mayesville, S.C. on July 10, 1875, on a rice and cotton farm, Mary Jane McLeod was the
fifteenth of seventeen children, some of whom had been sold into enslavement. In order to do their
best by their children, her parents sacrificed so they could buy land to farm. Mary had the same
determination. From childhood on, she took advantage of opportunities that were presented to her. Her
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parents, who had been born into enslavement, wanted their children to have an education. When Mary
was about eleven, the Mission Board of the Presbyterian Church opened a school for African-American
children. It was about four miles from her home, and the children had to walk back and forth to school,
but Mary wanted to go. Her mother commented that some of the children had to be forced to attend,
but not Mary, who was well aware of her family's relative poverty. Mary saw education as the key to
improving the lives of African-Americans. An incident that occurred when she was quite young may
explain this. Mary picked up a book while she was playing with a white child whose parents employed
Mary's mother. The white child grabbed the book and told Mary she couldn't have it because AfricanAmericans couldn't read. For Mary, education became the answer to the question, how can AfricanAmericans move up the ladder in American society?
A few years later, Mary had the chance to further her education when a woman in Detroit offered to pay
for the expenses of one child at Scotia Seminary in North Carolina. Mary was selected by her teacher
because she was an excellent student. After attending Scotia Seminary, she received a scholarship to the
Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, where she continued to be a high achiever. Mary was the only AfricanAmerican student there, and one of only a few non-whites.
As a child of twelve, Mary had been inspired by the words of a preacher who spoke of the need for
missionaries in Africa. Mary completed the two year program, planning to go to Africa as a missionary,
but was told that there were no open positions available at that time for African-Americans. Although
disappointed, she returned to Mayesville and taught there for a year at the mission school she had once
attended before requesting a new position from the Presbyterian Board of Education. She accepted a
position as a teacher in Augusta, Georgia at Haines Institute, where she worked under the educator Lucy
Laney. She gained a reputation as an "enthusiastic" teacher who held "Mission School" classes for
children gathered off the streets on Sunday afternoons. She taught there for a year.
Mary was sent next to Sumter, S.C. where she taught for two years at Kendall Institute before marrying
Albertus Bethune in 1898. The couple moved to Savannah, Georgia, where Albertus had a new job. Mary
did a little social work, but mainly she concentrated on raising her son, Albert, who was born in 1899.
The marriage was not a success, although the couple remained together until 1907 and on good terms
thereafter. Mary was restless, and she felt called to public service. A visiting minister from Palatka,
Florida urged her to move there and manage the new mission school he was starting. So in 1899 she
moved to Florida with her son, followed by her husband. In Palatka she taught at the Mission School and
visited prisoners in the county jail, reading and singing to them. She tried to help the prisoners in any
way she could, and worked to free those who were not guilty. Because money was tight, Mary
supplemented the family income by selling life insurance.
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The school grew, but Mary was not content. She wanted to provide opportunities for African-American
girls, and to do this she would found a school. She hoped to build the school in a new area, and a
minister suggested Daytona. Five years after arriving in Palatka, she moved to Daytona, Florida. Almost
penniless, she was sheltered by a local woman recommended by the minister, who helped her find the
house that she would use to open a school for African-American girls. This was her dream, and she
worked to make it come true. The house was bare, and Bethune was forced to repair furniture and use
discarded carpets. She went to local stores to beg for boxes, which she used for chairs, and packing
crates, which became her desks. In October of 1904, she opened the Daytona Educational and Industrial
Training School with a student body of five. Each child paid fifty cents a week in tuition. In line with
beliefs of the day, Bethune's primary focus was on training girls to take care of the home, so cooking and
sewing were offered as well as the three "r"s. Before long, she also had several boarders. Bethune
worked hard to keep her little school going, baking sweet potato pies to sell, and soon involving the
community in her efforts. The school was a success, despite its difficult beginning. Within three years
Bethune was able to relocate it to a permanent facility. Over the years, the one small house was
replaced by a thirty-two acre campus with fourteen buildings and 400 students. A farm was purchased
with the goal of making the school more self-sufficient. In 1923 the school became coeducational when
it merged with Cookman Institute of Jacksonville, Florida, and became Bethune-Cookman College. Her
house on the campus is maintained as a National Historic Landmark.
Bethune understood the importance of political participation. In the early 1900s, the battle for women's
suffrage was underway, but there was little role for African-American women, especially in the South. In
1912 Bethune joined the Equal Suffrage League, an offshoot of the National Association of Colored
Women. In an era when even African-American men couldn't vote, a frustrated Mary had to sit back and
watch as white-dominated organizations marched and protested nationwide. But in 1920, after passage
of the 19th amendment, the time for action had come. Bethune believed that if African-American
women were to vote, they could bring about change. Riding a bicycle she had used when she was raising
money for her school, she went door to door raising money to pay the poll tax. Her night classes
provided a means for African-Americans to learn to read well enough to pass the literacy test. Soon one
hundred potential voters had qualified. The night before the election, eighty members of the KKK
confronted Bethune, warning her against preparing African-Americans to vote. Bethune did not back
down, and the men left without causing any harm. The following day, Bethune led a procession of one
hundred African-Americans to the polls, all voting for the first time.
The story of her defiance of the Klan spread, and soon she was in demand as a speaker for the rights of
African-Americans. Meeting many prominent people was in some ways an eye-opener for her. She met
the African-American leader and scholar W.E.B. Dubois, and after hearing him comment that because of
his race he couldn't even check out one of his own books from a southern library, she made her own
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school library available to the general public. This was the only free source of reading material for
African-Americans in Florida at that time.
Bethune continued her career in public service as the years went by. She was elected to the National
Urban League's Executive Board in 1920, the only Southern woman of any race. She helped to establish
a home for delinquent African-American girls, she was president of the Southeastern Federation of
Women's Clubs, and she was elected as president of the 200,000 member National Association of
Colored Women twice in the 1920s. She used her position in the latter organization to speak out in favor
of education for African-Americans, making speeches. She also served as president of the National
Association of Teachers in Colored Schools and on the Interracial Council of America. She was a founder
and the first president of the National Council of Negro Women in the 1930s. In 1932 Bethune was
featured in a newspaper story by a well-known journalist, Ida Tarbell, as one of the fifty greatest
American women. She was number ten on the list.
The quality of Bethune's work was recognized by national politicians as well. Presidents from Coolidge to
Roosevelt appointed her to government positions. President Coolidge invited her to attend his Child
Welfare Conference in 1928. President Hoover appointed her to the White House Conference on Child
Health in 1930. Her experience in the education field and her knowledge of the state of AfricanAmerican education made her a valuable asset to both Presidents. She was also President Roosevelt's
Special Advisor on Minority Affairs from 1935 to 1944. Her home in Washington, D.C., the Council
House, where she did much of her work, is maintained by the National Park Service.
From 1936 to 1944 she held the position of Director of the Division of Negro Affairs of the National
Youth Administration, making her the first African-American woman to become a federal agency head.
Black advisors had been appointed for each federal agency, and their power was minimal. Bethune,
however, had an agenda. She wanted to see African-Americans fully integrated into American life. She
gathered a group of prominent men at her apartment in Washington for the first of many informal
discussions. Because she had access to the president, she was able to take the suggestions made by this
group to him, and see more blacks appointed to advisory positions. Her group became the Federal
Council on Negro Affairs, and became known as the "Black Cabinet". As a member and a leader of this
group, Bethune served as an unofficial advisor to President Roosevelt.
After World War II, she was one of three African-American consultants to the U.S. delegation involved in
developing the United Nations charter. Bethune served as the personal representative of President
Truman at the inauguration ceremonies in Liberia in 1952.
Always opposed to segregation, Bethune networked with influential whites to gain more opportunities
for blacks. She was first introduced to Eleanor Roosevelt at a luncheon held by Roosevelt's mother-in7
law in the 1920s. The only African-American present, she had to face the horrified stares of several
Southern white ladies who were present. Mrs. Roosevelt, senior, Bethune's hostess, led her into the
dining room, seated her in the place of the guest of honor, and introduced her to her daughter-in-law,
Eleanor.
As the years went by, the two younger women learned to know each other better. Bethune developed
very close ties with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1930s and 1940s. Bethune understood how to
use the power structure. She spoke out vehemently when African-American women were not permitted
to participate in the national advisory council of the War Department's Women's Interest Section in
1941, going public as well as complaining to the Secretary of War. She also worked behind the scenes
with Mrs. Roosevelt, and eventually won that battle. Participation in the advisory council put her in a
position to see that African-American women became officers in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps
established a year later.
Bethune was recognized for her hard work during her lifetime and received many honors. She was a
recipient of the Spingarn Medal in 1935, the Frances Drexel Award for Distinguished Service in 1937, and
the Thomas Jefferson Award for leadership in 1942. She received an honorary Doctor of Humanities
degree from Rollins College in 1949, the first African-American to receive an honorary degree from a
white southern college. She received the Medal of Honor and Merit from the Republic of Haiti in 1949
and the Star of Africa from the Republic of Liberia in 1952.After a lifetime of achievements, Mary
Bethune died on May 18, 1955. On July 10, 1974, ninety-nine years to the day after Bethune's birth, she
became the first woman and the first African-American to be honored with a statue in a public park in
Washington, D.C. The statue, in Lincoln Park, is a reminder of her achievements. South Carolina has
honored its native daughter as well, hanging her portrait in the state capitol in Columbia.
Biorgraphy from: http://www.usca.edu/aasc/bethune.htm
Mary McLeod Bethune, an African American teacher, was one of the great educators in United States
history. She was a leader of women, an adviser to several American presidents, and a powerful
champion of equality among races.
Early life and education
Mary McLeod was born in Mayesville, South Carolina. Her parents, Samuel and Patsy McLeod, were
former slaves, as were most of her brothers and sisters. (Mary was the fifteenth of seventeen children.)
After her parents were freed, they saved up and bought a small farm of their own. Mary helped her
parents on the family farm. When she was eleven years old, she entered a school established by a
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missionary from the Presbyterian Church. She walked five miles to and from school each day, then spent
her evenings teaching everything she had learned to the rest of her family.
Later Mary received a scholarship to attend Scotia Seminary, a school for African American girls in
Concord, North Carolina. She was strongly influenced by both white and black teachers there and met
some of the people with whom she would work closely later. Although she was very serious about her
studies, this did not prevent her from becoming a lively dancer and developing a lasting love of music.
Dynamic and alert, she was very popular. Her classmates looked to her as a leader. After graduating in
1893 she attended the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois.
Career as an educator
After graduation from the Moody Bible Institute, Mary wished to become a missionary in Africa.
However, she was told that African Americans were not allowed to take positions like that. She became
an instructor at the Presbyterian Mission School in Mayesville in 1896 and later at Haines Institute in
Augusta, Georgia, in 1896 and 1897. While she was working at Kindell Institute in Sumpter, South
Carolina, in 1897 and 1898, she met Albertus Bethune, whom she later married and had a son with. Her
devotion to the education of African American children caused problems with the marriage, however,
and the couple eventually separated.
In 1904 the construction of the Florida East Coast Railroad brought hundreds of African Americans to the
area looking for work. Bethune saw a need for education to improve the lives of these people. She
began her career as an educator in earnest when she rented a two-story house in Daytona Beach,
Florida, and began the difficult task of establishing a school for African American girls. Thus, in an era
when most African American children received little or no education, the Daytona Literary and Industrial
School for Training Negro Girls was begun in October 1904, with six pupils (five girls and her own son).
There was no equipment—crates were used for desks, charcoal took the place of pencils, and ink came
from crushed berries.
At first Bethune did everything herself—teaching, administrative duties, handling the money, and
keeping the school clean. She also searched garbage dumps for items that the school could restore and
use, such as furniture and pieces of wood. Later she was able to secure a staff, many of whom worked
loyally for her for many years. To help pay for expansion of the school, Bethune and her pupils baked
pies and made ice cream to sell to nearby construction workers. In addition to her regular classes,
Bethune organized classes for the children of turpentine workers. In these ways she satisfied her desire
to serve as a missionary.
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As the school at Daytona grew, it needed more money to run successfully. Bethune began to seek
donations from anywhere she could. In 1912 she interested James M. Gamble of the Procter and
Gamble Company of Cincinnati, Ohio, who contributed to the school and served as chairman of its board
of trustees until his death. In 1923 Bethune's school for girls merged with Cookman Institute of
Jacksonville, Florida, a school for boys. The new school became known as Bethune-Cookman Collegiate
Institute, soon renamed Bethune-Cookman College. Bethune served as president of the college until her
retirement in 1942. She remained a trustee of the college to the end of her life. By 1955 the college had
a faculty (teachers and administrative staff) of one hundred and a student enrollment of over one
thousand.
Other activities
Bethune's business activities were confined to the Central Life Insurance Company of Tampa, Florida, of
which she was president for several years; the Afro-American Life Insurance Company of Jacksonville,
which she served as director; and the Bethune-Volusia Beach Corporation, a recreation area and housing
development she founded in 1940. In addition she wrote numerous magazine and newspaper articles
and contributed chapters to several books. In 1932 she founded and organized the National Council of
Negro Women and became its president. By 1955 the organization had a membership of eight hundred
thousand.
Bethune also gained national recognition in 1936, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
appointed her director of African American affairs in the National Youth Administration and a special
adviser on minority affairs. She served for eight years and supervised the development of employment
opportunities and recreational facilities for African American youth throughout the United States. She
also served as special assistant to the secretary of war during World War II (1939–45). In the course of
her government assignments she became a close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962). During her
long career Bethune received many honorary (received without fulfilling the usual requirements)
degrees and awards, including the Haitian Medal of Honor and Merit (1949), the highest award of the
Haitian government. Mary McLeod Bethune died in Daytona Beach on May 18, 1955, of a heart attack.
She was buried on the campus of Bethune-Cookman College.
Biography from: http://www.notablebiographies.com/Be-Br/Bethune-Mary-Mcleod.html
Mary McLeod Bethune was born in Mayesville, South Carolina, the 15th of 17th children. Her parents,
Samuel and Patsy McLeod, and her oldest brothers and sisters, were slaves before emancipation when
the Union won the Civil War. In her early years, she picked cotton and attended a Methodist mission
school.
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In 1888, Mary McLeod Bethune received a scholarship to Scotia Seminary in North Carolina.
After graduating in 1893, she enrolled at what is now Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, intending to
become a missionary to Africa. She discovered, however, that African Americans were not selected for
such assignments.
Instead, Mary McLeod Bethune became a teacher in several Presbyterian schools in Georgia and South
Carolina. She married Albertus Bethune in 1898, and their son was born in 1899. The marriage lasted
about eight years; Albertus left the family but they remained married until his death in 1918.
Opening a School
Moving to Florida, and realizing that the workers being brought in for railway construction needed
schools for their families, Mary McLeod Bethune opened the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute in
1904, with only a few students. She raised funds, ran the school, taught the students, and the school
grew.
Mary McLeod Bethune focused the school on educating girls, who had few other opportunities for
education. At first, the school focused on elementary classes, and later secondary courses.
While first stressing industrial training and religious instruction, gradually the school moved to more
academic subjects.
The school was supported in part by whites, including northerners with summer homes in the area, and
such industrialists as James M. Gamble of Proctor and Gamble -- who served as president of the school's
board of trustees from 1912 until his death -- and Thomas H. White of the White Sewing Machine
Company.
In 1911, after the school added nursing classes, Bethune also opened a hospital, because students could
not be admitted to the local, whites-only, hospital. (The hospital closed in 1931.)
In the 1920s, Bethune arranged for the school's affiliation with the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in
1923, merged it with the Cookman Institute for men in Jacksonville to become Bethune-Cookman
College. The school began to focus on post-secondary courses, especially teacher training. The school,
which had begun with a handful of students, grew to a peak of 1,000 students and won full accreditation
-- 1939 as a junior college and 1941 as a four-year college.
Mary McLeod Bethune served as President of the school from 1904 until 1942, with a brief return in
1946-47. But she was also involved in other organizations, extending her interest in opportunities for
young African Americans.
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Beyond the School
During World War I, Bethune helped pressure the American Red Cross to integrate, and she was active
in anti-lynching campaigns.
In 1924, Mary McLeod Bethune was elected president of the National Association of Colored Women
(NACW). During her term, the organization bought a Washington, DC, building as a national
headquarters, and brought the organization into affiliation with the larger and more powerful, though
white-run, National Council of Women.
Mary McLeod Bethune was active in the Methodist Episcopal Church. She was a delegate from 1928 to
1944 to the general conference held each four years. She opposed the merger of the northern and
southern conferences, because the southern conference segregated black members.
In 1935, Mary McLeod Bethune brought together black women from many different organizations,
founding the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), and served as its president from 1935 to 1949.
That same year, she was awarded the Springarn Medal from the NAACP, and she served as vicepresident of the NAACP from 1940 to 1955.
From 1936 to 1951, Mary McLeod Bethune served as president of the Association for the Study of Negro
Life and History, the black history organization founded by Carter G. Woodson.
African American New Deal Official and Activist
Mary McLeod Bethune served on presidential commissions under presidents Calvin Coolidge (child
welfare) and Herbert Hoover (child welfare, home building and home ownership), and through her
activities came to the attention of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor. She became a
personal friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, sometimes speaking on the same platform with her, and consulted
with FDR on minority affairs. She played a key role in establishing, in 1936, the Federal Committee on
Fair Employment Practice, to help reduce discrimination or even exclusion of African Americans by the
growing defense industry.
Roosevelt appointed Mary McLeod Bethune to a position in the New Deal administration. Her position,
1936-1944, with the National Youth Administration, evolved into a directorship of the Division of Negro
Affairs. From this position, she was able to advocate for equal pay for black NYA employees. She was
more successful in ensuring that participation in NYA programs by black youth was in proportion to their
presence in the American population. She was also in charge of disbursing scholarship money to African
American students, the only African American in the New Deal administration who disbursed funds. Her
spot
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Mary McLeod Bethune also helped bring together a group of African Americans in the informal Federal
Council on Negro Affairs, the "black cabinet" that advised FDR.
Bethune also worked with the Democratic Party, urging the party to include black women in party
offices, advising the party on minority issues, and urging African Americans to vote Democratic.
During World War II, Bethune pressured the Secretary of War to commission black women as officers of
the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC, later the Women's Army Corps or WAC). She assisted Oveta
Culp Hobby in identifying and selecting such candidates to represent about 10% of the total candidates
selected.
After World War II
After the war, Mary McLeod Bethune was appointed by President Truman as a delegate and advisor on
interracial relations at the San Francisco Conference, which led to the organization of the United Nations
and writing of the United Nations Charter.
In her late years, Bethune continued working for equal opportunity in hiring and education, and against
segregation in public accommodations.
Biography from: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/bethune/a/mary_bethune.htm
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Timeline
Mary McLeod Bethune
1875 - July 10, 1875, Mary McLeod Bethune was born in Mayesville, South Carolina, the 15th of
17th children. Her parents, Samuel and Patsy McLeod, and her oldest brothers and sisters, were
slaves before emancipation when the Union won the Civil War. In her early years, she picked
cotton and attended a Methodist mission school.
1888 - In 1888, Mary McLeod Bethune received a scholarship to Scotia Seminary (Barber Scotia
College) in North Carolina.
1893 - After graduating in 1893, she enrolled at what is now Moody Bible Institute in Chicago,
intending to become a missionary to Africa. She discovered, however, that African Americans
were not selected for such assignments. Instead, Mary McLeod Bethune became a teacher in
several Presbyterian schools in Georgia and South Carolina.
1898 - She married Albertus Bethune in 1898.
1899 - Their son was born in 1899. The marriage lasted about eight years; Albertus left the
family but they remained married until his death in 1918.
1904 - Moving to Florida, and realizing that the workers being brought in for railway
construction needed schools for their families, Mary McLeod Bethune opened the Daytona
Normal and Industrial Institute in 1904, with $11.04 and only a few students. She raised funds,
ran the school, taught the students, and
the school grew. Mary McLeod Bethune served as
President of the school from 1904 until 1942, with a brief return in 1946-47. But she was also
involved in other organizations, extending her interest in opportunities for young African
Americans.
1911 - In 1911, after the school added nursing classes, Bethune also opened a hospital,
because students could not be admitted to the local, whites-only, hospital. (The hospital closed
in 1931.)
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1920 - In the 1920s, Bethune arranged for the school's affiliation with the Methodist Episcopal
Church.
1923 – 1941 - In 1923, Ms. Bethune merged it with the Cookman Institute for men in
Jacksonville to become Bethune-Cookman College. The school began to focus on postsecondary courses, especially teacher training. The school, which had begun with a handful of
students, grew to a peak of 1,000 students and won full accreditation -- 1939 as a junior college
and 1941 as a four-year college.
1924 - In 1924, Mary McLeod Bethune was elected president of the National Association of
Colored Women (NACW). During her term, the organization bought a Washington, DC, building
as a national headquarters, and brought the organization into affiliation with the larger and
more powerful, though white-run, National Council of Women.
1935 - In 1935, Mary McLeod Bethune brought together black women from many different
organizations, founding the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), and served as its
president from 1935 to 1949. That same year, she was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the
NAACP, and she served as vice-president of the NAACP from 1940 to 1955.
1936 - From 1936 to 1951, Mary McLeod Bethune served as president of the Association for
the Study of Negro Life and History, the black history organization founded by Carter G.
Woodson. She played a key role in establishing, in 1936, the Federal Committee on Fair
Employment Practice, to help reduce discrimination or even exclusion of African Americans by
the growing defense industry. Roosevelt appointed Mary McLeod Bethune to a position in the
New Deal administration. Her position, 1936-1944, with the National Youth Administration,
evolved into a directorship of the Division of Negro Affairs.
1938 - She dedicated her life to the education of both whites and blacks about the
accomplishments and needs of black people, writing in 1938, "If our people are to fight their
way up out of bondage we must arm them with the sword and the shield and buckler of pride belief in themselves and their possibilities, based upon a sure knowledge of the achievements
of the past."
1949 - In 1949 she became the first woman to be given the Medal of Honor and Merit at the
Haitian Exposition, Haiti's highest award. She served as the US emissary to the induction of
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President William V.S. Tubman of Liberia in 1949. She was also an honorary member of Delta
Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, the second oldest African-American sorority.
1955 - On May 18, 1955, Bethune died of a heart attack. Her death was followed by editorial
tributes in newspapers all over America. The Oklahoma City Black Dispatch stated she was,
"Exhibit No. 1 for all who have faith in American and the democratic process." The Atlanta Daily
World said her life was, "One of the most dramatic careers ever enacted at any time upon the
stage of human activity." And in the Pittsburgh Courier, it was stated, "In any race or nation she
would have been an outstanding personality and made a noteworthy contribution because her
chief attribute was her indomitable soul."
1985 - In 1985 the US Postal Service issued a stamp in her honor. In 1989 Ebony Magazine
listed her on their list of "50 Most Important Figures in Black US History", and named her
again in 1999, Ebony Magazine included Mary McLeod Bethune as one of the 100 Most
Fascinating Black Women of the 20th century.
2002 - In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Mary McLeod Bethune on his list of 100
Greatest African Americans.
2004 – (100-Year Anniversary of Bethune-Cookman college) In 2004, Bethune-Cookman
University celebrated its 100-year anniversary. It currently sits on 82.2 acres (333,000 m2) in
Daytona Beach. There are now 40 buildings that educate more than 3,000 students from almost
every state in the United States and 35 countries, and the school is located on Mary McLeod
Bethune Boulevard, which was once 2nd Avenue. The university offers 35 majors in six major
colleges: arts and humanities, business, education, nursing, social science, and science
engineering. The university's website contends that, "the vision of the founder remains in full
view over one-hundred years later. The institution prevails in order that others might improve
their heads, hearts, and hands." The university's vice president recalled her legacy in saying,
"During Mrs. Bethune's time, this was the only place in the city of Daytona Beach where Whites
and Blacks could sit in the same room and enjoy what she called 'gems from students'—their
recitations and songs. This is a person who was able to bring Black people and White together."
There is a historical marker in Maysville, Sumter County, South Carolina commemorating her
birthplace.
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Images
Mary McLeod Bethune
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_McLeod_Bethune
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The cabin in Mayesville, South Carolina where Mary
McLeod was born
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_McLeod_Bethune
Mary McLeod Bethune with girls from the Literary
and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in
Daytona, circa 1905.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Daytona_School_wi
th_Bethune.jpg
Group photo of students at the Literary and Industrial
Training School for Negro Girls, taken about 1919.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_McLeod_Bethu
ne
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Mary McLeod Bethune enters the White House circa
1950.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_McLeod_Bethune
Mary McLeod Bethune Council Home at 1318
Vermont Avenue, NW in the Logan Circle
neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The building is
listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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http://www.google.com/images?rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS4
06US406&q=images+for+mary+McCloud+Bethune&u
m=1&ie=UTF8&source=univ&ei=v1w0Ta7KEcnPgAfSu5jPCw&sa=X
&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0
CD8QsAQwAw&biw=996&bih=487
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http://www.gcah.org/site/c.ghKJI0PHIoE/b.4980699/
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http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.
africawithin.com/bios/bethune_portrait.jpg&imgrefu
rl=http://www.africawithin.com/bios/bethune_galler
y.htm&usg=__c5ybbAGWVlVHkOEgFeG2fJqtcq4=&h=
325&w=240&sz=58&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=
JIwxLGvGjTDyVM:&tbnh=156&tbnw=97&ei=xlw0TYb
WHIj2gAfo8MW8Cw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dimages
%2Bfor%2Bmary%2BMcCloud%2BBethune%26um%3
D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26rlz%3D1T4GGLL_enU
S406US406%26biw%3D996%26bih%3D487%26tbs%3
Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=250&oei=xlw0T
YbWHIj2gAfo8MW8Cw&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=11&v
ed=1t:429,r:6,s:0&tx=48&ty=93
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Credits
South Carolina Social Studies Standard Correlations were provided by Lisa Ray
The purpose of the South Carolina Hall of Fame is to recognize and honor both contemporary
and past citizens who have made outstanding contributions to South Carolina's heritage and
progress.
Funding for Knowitall.org was provided by the S. C. General Assembly through the K-12
Technology Initiative.
Visit scetv.org/education for more educational resources.
31
Credits
South Carolina Social Studies Standard Correlations were provided by Lisa Ray
The purpose of the South Carolina Hall of Fame is to recognize and honor both contemporary
and past citizens who have made outstanding contributions to South Carolina's heritage and
progress.
Funding for Knowitall.org was provided by the S. C. General Assembly through the K-12
Technology Initiative.
Visit scetv.org/education for more educational resources.
32