Mary Jane McLeod was born in South Carolina, the fifteenth of seventeen children. Scholarships enabled her to attend Scotia Seminary and Moody Bible Institute. Turned down when she applied to go to Africa as a missionary, she returned to the South. She met and married Albertus Bethune and began to teach school.
In Daytona, Florida, in 1904, she scraped together $1.50 to begin a school with just five pupils. She called it the Daytona Literary and Industrial School for Training Negro Girls. A gifted teacher and leader, Mrs. Bethune ran her school with a combination of unshakable faith and remarkable organizational skills. She was a brilliant speaker and an astute fundraiser. She expanded the school to a high school, then
a junior college, and then a college. Today, her legacy is Bethune-Cookman University.
Continuing to direct the school, she turned her attention to the national scene, where she became a forceful and inspiring representative of her people. First through the National Council of Negro Women, then within Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the National Youth Administration, she worked to attack discrimination and increase opportunities for Black people. Behind the scenes as a member of the “Black Cabinet,” and in hundreds of public appearances, she strove to improve the status of her people.
