Luminaries

Mary McLeod Bethune

Mary McLeod Bethune, born to former slaves in rural South Carolina, worked in the cotton fields with her parents at an early age. A passion for learning to read and write led her to attend Maysville Presbyterian Mission School, where she so impressed her teacher that she was recommended for a scholarship to Scotia Seminary. Upon graduation in 1894, she attended Dwight Moody's Institute for Home and Foreign Missions.

After a year at Moody's, Bethune began a career that would span nearly 60 years in education and public service. She was the first woman to establish a secondary school, the Daytona (Florida) Normal and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls in 1904, that became a 4-year accredited college—Bethune-Cookman College. She served as its president from 1904 to 1942 and from 1946 to 1947. Bethune worked not only to maintain the school, she also aggressively fought segregation and inequality facing Blacks.

In 1923, Bethune was the first woman elected president of National Association of Teachers in Colored Schools (NATCS), later renamed the American Teachers Association (ATA). She served in 1924.

A leader in the Black women's club movement, Bethune served as the eighth president of the National Association of Colored Women (1924-1928) and founded the National Council of Negro Women in 1935. Admired by many, she counted among her friends First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. She passed away in 1955.

In 1974, Bethune was honored at a dedication and symposium in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the National Council of Negro Women. As part of the event, NEA published a booklet saluting Bethune, entitled The Legacy of Mary McLeod Bethune, and sent representatives to the symposium, which was attended by the Secretary of the Interior, the mayor of Washington, D.C., congresspersons, and numerous other dignitaries.