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Mary Jane McLeod Bethune (born Mary Jane McLeod; July 10, 1875 – May 18, 1955[1]) was an American educator, stateswoman, philanthropist, humanitarian and civil rights activist 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 as part of what was known as his Black Cabinet. She was known as "The First Lady of The Struggle" because of her commitment to gain better lives for African Americans.[2]
Born in Mayesville, South Carolina, to parents who had been slaves, she started working in fields with her family 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, which were strong civic organizations supporting welfare and other needs, 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. At the time, blacks had been largely disenfranchised in the South since the turn of the century, so she was speaking to black voters across the North. 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."[3]
Honors include designation of her home in Daytona Beach as a National Historic Landmark,[4] her house in Washington, D.C. as a National Historic Site,[5] and the installation of a memorial sculpture of her in Lincoln Park in Washington, D.C.[6] The Legislature of Florida is expected to designate her in 2018 as the subject of one of Florida's two statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection.[7]
Born in Mayesville, South Carolina, to parents who had been slaves, she started working in fields with her family 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, which were strong civic organizations supporting welfare and other needs, 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. At the time, blacks had been largely disenfranchised in the South since the turn of the century, so she was speaking to black voters across the North. 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."[3]
Honors include designation of her home in Daytona Beach as a National Historic Landmark,[4] her house in Washington, D.C. as a National Historic Site,[5] and the installation of a memorial sculpture of her in Lincoln Park in Washington, D.C.[6] The Legislature of Florida is expected to designate her in 2018 as the subject of one of Florida's two statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection.[7]
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Mary McLeod Bethune, Civil Rights Activist | Biography
Jacqui Rossi explores the life of Mary McLeod Bethune and her devotion to the education and advancement of African Americans. #Biography Subscribe for more B...
Thank you my friend Maj Marty Hogan for making us aware that July 10 is the anniversary of the birth of American educator, stateswoman, philanthropist, humanitarian and civil rights activist Mary Jane McLeod Bethune.
Rest in eternal peace Mary Jane McLeod Bethune.
Jacqui Rossi explores the life of Mary McLeod Bethune and her devotion to the education and advancement of African Americans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnI0RhtE9jY
Images:
1. Mary McLeod Bethune
2. 1985 Black Heritage Series - 22 cents Mary McLeod Bethune Scott # 2,137
3. Mary McLeod Bethune 'We have a powerful potential in our youth, and we must have the courage to change old ideas and practices so that we may direct their power toward good ends.'
Background from blackpast.org/aah/bethune-mary-jane-mcleod-1875-1955
"Mary McLeod Bethune was a prominent educator, political leader, and social visionary whose early twentieth century activism for black women and civil rights laid the foundation for the modern civil rights era. Inspired by leaders such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Josephine St. Pierre-Ruffin, Bethune mobilized African American women’s organizations to challenge racial injustice and demand first class citizenship.
Mary Jane McLeod was born on July 10, 1875, the 15th of 17 children of Samuel and Patsy McIntosh McLeod, former slaves in Maysville, South Carolina. As a child, she quickly discovered the value of education. Unlike her parents and all but two of her siblings, Bethune was born free and was formally educated at the Maysville School, a Presbyterian Mission School for African Americans. Shortly after her graduation in 1886, Bethune continued her education on a scholarship at the Scotia Seminary for Girls (now Barber-Scotia College) in Concord, North Carolina. Upon graduation in 1894, Bethune initially planned to become a Christian missionary in Africa. After teaching and working among South Carolina blacks, however, she realized that “Africans in America needed Christ and school just as much as Negroes in Africa… My life work lay not in Africa but in my own country.”
In 1898 at the age of 23, Mary McLeod married Albertus Bethune. The marriage lasted less than a decade because Albertus deserted the family in 1907. The couple had one son, Albert McLeod Bethune. Juggling family and work, Mary McLeod Bethune taught in Georgia, South Carolina, Florida and Illinois between 1895 and 1903 before settling in Daytona, Florida. Beginning in 1904, she opened a high school, hospital, and the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls. The popularity of Daytona Normal led to its merging with the Methodist-run Cookman Institute for Men in Jacksonville in 1923, thus becoming the Bethune-Cookman College. Bethune served as the merged college’s first president from 1923 to 1942 and again from 1946 to 1947. She was, at the time, one of the few female college presidents in the nation.
While establishing crucial educational institutions, Bethune also in 1917 began decades of leadership among women’s groups when she was elected President of the Florida Federation of Colored Women. In 1924 she was elected President of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) which was founded by St. Pierre-Ruffin in 1896.
As NACW president, Bethune tried to steer it beyond traditional self-help and moral uplift toward the politics of agitation for integration by attacking racial discrimination and segregation in the Federal government. Frustrated by the difficulty of eliminating Jim Crow in the US government and the internal politics of the NACW, Bethune in 1935 left the Association and founded the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), an organization with a more explicit civil rights agenda.
Bethune’s friendship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the reasons for the creation of the NCNW. That friendship led to Bethune becoming the Director of the National Youth Administration's (NYA) Division of Negro Affairs, a post she held from 1936 to 1943. As Director, she led an organization that trained tens of thousands of black youth for skilled positions that eventually became available in defense plants during World War II. She made sure black colleges participated in the Civilian Pilot Training Program which graduated some of the nation’s first black pilots.
Through the NYA Bethune became the most prominent African American in the Franklin Roosevelt Administration and because of her friendship with Mrs. Roosevelt, she influenced government policy in the 1930s. She was also the chair of the informal Black Cabinet of senior African American officials in the Roosevelt administration.
Bethune was instrumental in integrating the Red Cross, increasing public awareness of lynching, voter discrimination in federal elections, and segregation on interstate trains and buses. In 1949 she was appointed by President Harry S. Truman to lead the US delegation to Liberia to observe the inauguration of President William V.S. Tubman. In 1951, she served on President Truman's Committee of Twelve for National Defense.
Mary McLeod Bethune died of a heart attack on May 18, 1955 at the age of 79. She lived long enough to see the US Supreme Court strike down de jure school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education but she died seven months before the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott which ushered in the modern Civil Rights Movement which was in part inspired by her activism.
Sources:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eleanor/peopleevents/pande05.html; http://www.nps.gov/mamc/historyculture/people_marymcleodbethune.htm; Mary McLeod Bethune, Mary McLeod Bethune: Building a Better World, Essays and Selected Documents (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001); John Hope Franklin (ed.), Black Leaders of the Twentieth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982), 191-220; Darlene Clark Hine (ed.), The African-American Odyssey (New York: Prentice Hall, 2011)."
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC Orlando Illi Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price CPT Jack Durish Capt Tom Brown CMSgt (Join to see) MSG Andrew White SFC William Farrell SGT (Join to see) Sgt Albert Castro SSG David Andrews Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Charles H. Hawes SGT Mark Halmrast SPC Margaret Higgins PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
Rest in eternal peace Mary Jane McLeod Bethune.
Jacqui Rossi explores the life of Mary McLeod Bethune and her devotion to the education and advancement of African Americans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnI0RhtE9jY
Images:
1. Mary McLeod Bethune
2. 1985 Black Heritage Series - 22 cents Mary McLeod Bethune Scott # 2,137
3. Mary McLeod Bethune 'We have a powerful potential in our youth, and we must have the courage to change old ideas and practices so that we may direct their power toward good ends.'
Background from blackpast.org/aah/bethune-mary-jane-mcleod-1875-1955
"Mary McLeod Bethune was a prominent educator, political leader, and social visionary whose early twentieth century activism for black women and civil rights laid the foundation for the modern civil rights era. Inspired by leaders such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Josephine St. Pierre-Ruffin, Bethune mobilized African American women’s organizations to challenge racial injustice and demand first class citizenship.
Mary Jane McLeod was born on July 10, 1875, the 15th of 17 children of Samuel and Patsy McIntosh McLeod, former slaves in Maysville, South Carolina. As a child, she quickly discovered the value of education. Unlike her parents and all but two of her siblings, Bethune was born free and was formally educated at the Maysville School, a Presbyterian Mission School for African Americans. Shortly after her graduation in 1886, Bethune continued her education on a scholarship at the Scotia Seminary for Girls (now Barber-Scotia College) in Concord, North Carolina. Upon graduation in 1894, Bethune initially planned to become a Christian missionary in Africa. After teaching and working among South Carolina blacks, however, she realized that “Africans in America needed Christ and school just as much as Negroes in Africa… My life work lay not in Africa but in my own country.”
In 1898 at the age of 23, Mary McLeod married Albertus Bethune. The marriage lasted less than a decade because Albertus deserted the family in 1907. The couple had one son, Albert McLeod Bethune. Juggling family and work, Mary McLeod Bethune taught in Georgia, South Carolina, Florida and Illinois between 1895 and 1903 before settling in Daytona, Florida. Beginning in 1904, she opened a high school, hospital, and the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls. The popularity of Daytona Normal led to its merging with the Methodist-run Cookman Institute for Men in Jacksonville in 1923, thus becoming the Bethune-Cookman College. Bethune served as the merged college’s first president from 1923 to 1942 and again from 1946 to 1947. She was, at the time, one of the few female college presidents in the nation.
While establishing crucial educational institutions, Bethune also in 1917 began decades of leadership among women’s groups when she was elected President of the Florida Federation of Colored Women. In 1924 she was elected President of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) which was founded by St. Pierre-Ruffin in 1896.
As NACW president, Bethune tried to steer it beyond traditional self-help and moral uplift toward the politics of agitation for integration by attacking racial discrimination and segregation in the Federal government. Frustrated by the difficulty of eliminating Jim Crow in the US government and the internal politics of the NACW, Bethune in 1935 left the Association and founded the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), an organization with a more explicit civil rights agenda.
Bethune’s friendship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the reasons for the creation of the NCNW. That friendship led to Bethune becoming the Director of the National Youth Administration's (NYA) Division of Negro Affairs, a post she held from 1936 to 1943. As Director, she led an organization that trained tens of thousands of black youth for skilled positions that eventually became available in defense plants during World War II. She made sure black colleges participated in the Civilian Pilot Training Program which graduated some of the nation’s first black pilots.
Through the NYA Bethune became the most prominent African American in the Franklin Roosevelt Administration and because of her friendship with Mrs. Roosevelt, she influenced government policy in the 1930s. She was also the chair of the informal Black Cabinet of senior African American officials in the Roosevelt administration.
Bethune was instrumental in integrating the Red Cross, increasing public awareness of lynching, voter discrimination in federal elections, and segregation on interstate trains and buses. In 1949 she was appointed by President Harry S. Truman to lead the US delegation to Liberia to observe the inauguration of President William V.S. Tubman. In 1951, she served on President Truman's Committee of Twelve for National Defense.
Mary McLeod Bethune died of a heart attack on May 18, 1955 at the age of 79. She lived long enough to see the US Supreme Court strike down de jure school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education but she died seven months before the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott which ushered in the modern Civil Rights Movement which was in part inspired by her activism.
Sources:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eleanor/peopleevents/pande05.html; http://www.nps.gov/mamc/historyculture/people_marymcleodbethune.htm; Mary McLeod Bethune, Mary McLeod Bethune: Building a Better World, Essays and Selected Documents (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001); John Hope Franklin (ed.), Black Leaders of the Twentieth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982), 191-220; Darlene Clark Hine (ed.), The African-American Odyssey (New York: Prentice Hall, 2011)."
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC Orlando Illi Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price CPT Jack Durish Capt Tom Brown CMSgt (Join to see) MSG Andrew White SFC William Farrell SGT (Join to see) Sgt Albert Castro SSG David Andrews Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Charles H. Hawes SGT Mark Halmrast SPC Margaret Higgins PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
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