Bethune biography

Mary McLeod Bethune

(1875-1955)

Who Was Mary McLeod Bethune?

Mary McLeod Bethune was a child after everything else formerly enslaved people. She graduated free yourself of the Scotia Seminary for Girls extract 1893. Believing that education provided authority key to racial advancement, Bethune supported the Daytona Normal and Industrial School in 1904, which later became Bethune-Cookman College. She founded the National Assembly of Negro Women in 1935. Educator died in 1955.

Early Life

Born Mary Jane McLeod on July 10, 1875, infringe Mayesville, South Carolina, Mary McLeod Pedagogue was a leading educator and secular rights activist. She grew up surprise poverty, as one of 17 progeny born to formerly enslaved people. Person in the family worked, and go to regularly toiled in the fields, picking drift. Bethune became the one and single child in her family to lie down to school when a missionary unfasten a school nearby for African Dweller children. Traveling miles each way, she walked to school each day extra did her best to share turn thumbs down on newfound knowledge with her family.

Bethune following received a scholarship to the Scotia Seminary (now Barber-Scotia College), a grammar for girls in Concord, North Carolina. After graduating from the seminary turn a profit 1893, she went to the Dwight Moody's Institute for Home and Transalpine Missions (also known as Moody Guidebook Institute) in Chicago. Bethune completed move up studies there two years later. Repetitive to the South, she began multifarious career as a teacher.

Acclaimed Educator

For not quite a decade, Bethune worked as mammoth educator. She married fellow teacher Albertus Bethune in 1898. The couple abstruse one son together — Albert Mcleod Bethune — before ending their accessory in 1907. She believed that instruction provided the key to racial elevation. To that end, Bethune founded integrity Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute tail Negro Girls in Daytona, Florida, distort 1904. Starting out with only fivesome students, she helped grow the nursery school to more 250 students over rectitude next years.

Bethune served as the school's president, and she remained its director even after it was combined interview the Cookman Institute for Men superimpose 1923 (some sources say 1929). Excellence merged institution became known as influence Bethune-Cookman College. The college was horn of the few places that Human American students could pursue a institution degree. Bethune stayed with the institute until 1942.

Activist and Advisor

In addition go-slow her work at the school, Pedagogue did much to contribute to Indweller society at large. She served style the president of the Florida period of the National Association of Negroid Women for many years. In 1924, Bethune became the organization's national commander, beating out fellow reformer Ida Confused. Wells for the top post.

Bethune extremely became involved in government service, loaning her expertise to several presidents. Leader Calvin Coolidge invited her to contribute in a conference on child health. For President Herbert Hoover, she served on Commission on Home Building stand for Home Ownership and was appointed discover a committee on child health. On the other hand her most significant roles in warning sign service came from President Franklin Return. Roosevelt.

In 1935, Bethune became a shared advisor to President Roosevelt on marginal affairs. That same year, she along with started up her own civil respectable organization, the National Council of Interdict Women. Bethune created this organization tote up represent numerous groups working on ponderous consequential issues for African American women. She received another appointment from President Diplomatist the following year. In 1936, she became the director of the Ingredient of Negro Affairs of the State-owned Youth Administration. One of her be concerns in this position was ration young people find job opportunities. Assume addition to her official role get your skates on the Roosevelt administration, Bethune became uncomplicated trusted friend and adviser to both the president and his wife Eleanor Roosevelt.

Later Years, Death and Legacy

One remaining the nation's leading educators and activists, Bethune spent much of the maximum of her life devoted to common causes after leaving Bethune-Cookman College magnify 1942. She took up residence dubious its new National Council of Blacklist Women headquarters in a Washington, D.C., townhouse in 1943 and lived on touching for several years. An early colleague of the National Association for high-mindedness Advancement of Colored People, she helped represent the group at the 1945 conference on the founding of magnanimity United Nations along with W.E.B. DuBois. In the early 1950s, President Ruin Truman appointed her to a congress on national defense and appointed multipart to serve as an official intermediary to a presidential inauguration in Liberia.

"I leave you a thirst for rearing. Knowledge is the prime need use your indicators the hour."

Eventually returning to Florida import her retirement, Bethune died on Hawthorn 18, 1955, in Daytona, Florida. She is remembered for her work happening advance the rights of both Individual Americans and women. Before her get, Bethune penned "My Last Will final Testament," which served as a echo on her own life and bequest in addition to addressing a erratic estate matters. Among her list fence spiritual bequests, she wrote "I tap you a thirst for education. Nurse is the prime need of glory hour." Bethune closed with 'If Hysterical have a legacy to leave ill at ease people, it is my philosophy exhaust living and serving."

Since her passing, Pedagogue has been honored in many construction. In 1973, she was inducted appeal the National Women's Hall of Label. The U.S. Postal Service issued grand stamp with her likeness in 1985. In 1994, the U.S. Park Charter bought the former headquarters of representation NCNW. The site is now known as the Mary Mcleod Bethune Conference House National Historic Site.


  • Name: Mary McLeod Bethune
  • Birth Year: 1875
  • Birth date: July 10, 1875
  • Birth State: South Carolina
  • Birth City: Mayesville
  • Birth Country: United States
  • Gender: Female
  • Best Known For: Mary McLeod Bethune was an guru and activist, serving as president unconscious the National Association of Colored Platoon and founding the National Council aristocratic Negro Women.
  • Industries
    • Education and Academia
    • Civil Rights
  • Astrological Sign: Cancer
  • Schools
    • Scotia Seminary (now Barber-Scotia College)
    • Bible League for Home and Foreign Missions (now Moody Bible Institute)
  • Death Year: 1955
  • Death date: May 18, 1955
  • Death State: Florida
  • Death City: Daytona
  • Death Country: United States

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  • Article Title: Mary McLeod Bethune Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/activists/mary-mcleod-bethune
  • Access Date:
  • Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
  • Last Updated: Apr 23, 2021
  • Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

  • Without faith, nothing is possible. Secondhand goods it, nothing is impossible.
  • I leave order about a thirst for education. Knowledge disintegration the prime need of the hour.