Writing Women Back Into History

 Mary McCleod Bethune

(1875-1955)

Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955), an African American teacher, was one of the great educators of the United States. She was a leader of women, a distinguished adviser to American presidents, and a powerful champion of racial equality.

 Mary McLeod was born in Mayesville, S.C. Her parents, Samuel and Patsy McLeod, were former slaves; Mary was the fifteenth of 17 children. She picked cotton and worked with her parents as sharecroppers on a rice farm. She first entered a Presbyterian mission school when she was 11 years old.

Later she attended Scotia Seminary, a school for African American girls in Concord, N.C., on a scholarship. She graduated in 1893 and later went on to graduate from the Moody Institute. She wanted to become a missionary in Africa; however, Black women were not accepted as missionaries at the time.

Instead, she worked as a teacher in the U.S.,married, had a child and soon saw an opportunity to make her mark on education. She rented a two-story frame building in Daytona Beach, Fla., and began the difficult task of establishing a school for African American girls. Her school opened in October 1904, with six pupils, five girls and her own son. There was no equipment; crates were used for desks and charcoal took the place of pencils. Thus began the Daytona Literary and Industrial School for Training Negro Girls, in an era when most African American children received little or no education. Eventually, the school became what is today Bethune-Cookman College. She remained a trustee of the college until the end of her life.

Mary McLeod Bethune also distinguished herself as a business person, as an anti-lynching and women's rights activist and as a presidential advisor. She helped President Franklin Delano Roosevelt establish his "Black Cabinet" and was a confidante of Eleanor Roosevelt.