Mary McLeod Bethune 1875-1955

I admit that I have seen pictures of this lady my entire life… particularly during the month of February. I also admit that I thought this was Mahalia Jackson when I was a little kid. However, as I got older and learned who this very important person in American history is, I developed mad respect.

Her name is Mary McLeod Bethune.

Mrs. Bethune was born to former slaves, and during a time where Blacks were second class citizens. She was an educator that started the Literary and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in Daytona in 1904 with six students.

This developed into what is know known as the HBCU (Historically Black College or University) Bethune-Cookman University. Mrs. Bethune was president of the college from 1923 to 1942 and 1946 to 1947. There were only a handful female college presidents in the world at that time, and she was one of them.

Mrs. Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women in New York City in 1935, and was she was also really down with Eleanor Roosevelt. Among many other things, she formed the Black Cabinet, which was an informal group of African American public policy advisers to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The more I learn about this lady, the more that I respect her. It wasn’t easy to do the things that she did during the time that she did it.