Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955)

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Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955)

• Fall 2006
• EDCI 658

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Who Is Mary McLeod Bethune?

• If you are a woman reading this book, today you
  can aspire to any position in education you
  desire and reach your dream. This was not always
  so. Women in America, especially women of color,
  have Mary McLeod Bethune to thank you promoting
  the large entry of women in higher education in
  the 1900s who completed college degree programs
  and entered the professions of education, law,
  and government.
• Murphy, 2006, p. 336

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Who Is Mary McLeod Bethune Cont.

• Born on July 10, 1875 near Mayesville, South
  Carolina to former slaves Patsy and Samuel McLeod
• She was the fifteen of their seventeen children,
  the first born in freedom
• She worked in her family fields as a child

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Who Is Mary McLeod Bethune Cont.

• There were no schools for blacks in Mayesville
  until one-room mission school opened when Mary
  was eleven
• She walked five miles each day in order to attend
  that school
• She returned to the fields after attending the
  mission school since there were no
• high schools for black children in her area

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Who Is Mary McLeod Bethune Cont.

• Mary was granted a scholarship from Mary
  Chrissman, a Quaker dressmaker, to attend the
  Scotia Seminary in Concord, North Carolina, a
  racially mixed school
• Mary attended the Seminary for six years and
  learned both academic and vocational, social
  skills
• She actively participated extracurricular
  activities such as chorus, baking, and debate

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Who Is Mary McLeod Bethune Cont.

• She graduated from Scotia at the age of 20 and
  studied at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago
  with Dwight Moody, the only African American
  student among the 1000 students
• Mary was an openly religious person with
  meditation and scripture reading everyday and
  spoke of a personal relationship with God through
  dreams

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Who Is Mary McLeod Bethune Cont.

• She returned south to teach schools in Georgia
  where she met and married Albertus Bethune and
  had a son in 1899
• She was invited to be the director of a school in
  Florida
• She opened her own school, Daytona Educational
  and Industrial School for Negro Girls in 1904
  with her savings of 1.50
• She had five student the first day sitting on the
  boxes in a rented house

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Who Is Mary McLeod Bethune Cont.

• Albertus helped with the school and was one of
  the Board of Trustees until 1908 when he left for
  a better job in South Carolina and never returned
  to Florida
• Mary had to raise fund for her school and
  received support fro philanthropists such as
  James M. Gamble of Procter and Gamber
• By 1910, the school had 102 students and 1920,
  351 students

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Who Is Mary McLeod Bethune Cont.

• The mission of Marys school uplift Negro girls
  spiritually, morally, intellectually, and
  industrially.
• She opened McLeod Hospital after a girl in her
  school got ill and was refused to be treated in a
  white hospital
• Marys hospital also had a program that provides
  training to black girls in nursing
• The mission of Marys nursing school is go as
  far as your aspirations and talents can take you.

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Who Is Mary McLeod Bethune Cont.

• Daytona School merged with Cookman Institute for
  Men in 1923 and became the four-year,
  co-educational Behune-Cookman College, the first
  fully accredited four-year college for blacks in
  Florida
• Mary served as president of the school until 1942

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Who Is Mary McLeod Bethune Cont.

• She was also a national leader and served as the
  president of the National Association of Teachers
  in Colored Schools (1923) and the National
  Assocation of Colored Women from (1924-1928)
• Bethune was the only black woman invited to a
  luncheon hosted by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1927 and
  sat beside Sara Roosevelt

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Who Is Mary McLeod Bethune Cont.

• She toured nine European countries in 1927 and
  had an audience with Pope Pius XI
• She received the Joel E. Springarn Medal from the
  National Association for the Advancement of
  Colored People in 1935

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Who Is Mary McLeod Bethune Cont.

• Franklin D. Roosevelt invited her to become a
  member of the National Youth Administration
  advisory board Division of Negro Affairs and the
  director of the Office of Minority Affairs of the
  NYA
• Her four passions---race, women, education, and
  youth, were all put on national agenda by FDR
• She was the most highly paid African American
  women in the government

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Who Is Mary McLeod Bethune Cont.

• In 1945, President Harry Truman appointed her to
  his Civil Rights Commission
• Together with W. E. B. DuBios and Walter White,
  she was invited to SF to draw up a charter for
  the UN
• She received numerous awards and eight honorary
  degrees during her life

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Who Is Mary McLeod Bethune Cont.

• With the help of Eleanor Roosevelt, Mary began
  the Mary McLeod Bethune Foundation to promote her
  ideas about black educational advancement,
  interracial cooperation, and service to young
  people
• She was considered the female counterpart of W.
  E. B. DuBois
• Before she died, she saw the landmark Brown vs.
  Education in Topeka case

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Who Is Mary McLeod Bethune Cont.

• Summary
• Little formal education
• A teacher, a college president
• Founder of an elementary school, which became a
  high school then college
• Government official on educational committees
• A great orator
• A national monument in DC
• Schools, streets named after her
• One of the fifty greatest American women

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Bethunes Contribution to Education

• Role model for black women more black women
  received B. A. degrees from black colleges than
  black men by the 1940s
• Fund raiser for black education
• Established various training programs for black
  librarians, pilots, and teachers to teach in the
  southern rural areas

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Bethunes Philosophy of Education

• She felt women needed a distinctive education
  different from that of men so they could take
  their place in transforming society
• She provided her girls with a classical education
  in sciences, mathematics, literature, and foreign
  languages
• She also combined academic training with
  vocational training that help women become
  professional teachers, nurses, librarians, and
  social workers, which made them economic
  independent

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Bethunes Philosophy of Education

• She used both Booker T. Washington and W. E. B.
  Duboiss ideas
• Emphasized the importance of academic,
  vocational, and religious education for women in
  order to make them economically independent
• Emphasized working within the system in order to
  change it
• Advocated the liberal arts and professional
  higher education for all capable blacks

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Mary McLeod Bethune Quotes

• I cannot rest while there is a single Negro boy
  or girl lacking a chance to prove his worth
• There is no such thing as Negro education---only
  education. I want my people to prepare themselves
  bravely for life, not because they are Negroes,
  but because they are human beings.

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Mary McLeod Bethune Quotes Cont.

• I longed to see Negro women hold in their hands
  diplomas which bespoke achievement I longed to
  see them trained to be inspirational wives and
  mothers I longed to see their accomplishments
  recognized side by side with any women, anywhere.
  With this vision before me, my life has been
  spent

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Mary McLeod Bethune Quotes Cont.

• The education of the Negro girl must embrace a
  larger appreciation for good citizenship in the
  home. Our girls must be taught cleanliness,
  beauty, and thoughtfulness, and their application
  in making home life possible. For proper home
  life provides the proper atmosphere for life
  everywhere else. The ideals of home must not
  forever be talked about they must be living
  factors built into the everyday educational
  experiences of our girls.

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Resources on Bethune

• http//www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/beth-mar.htm
• http//www.nahc.org/NAHC/Val/Columns/SC10-6.html
• http//www.floridamemory.com/OnlineClassroom/MaryB
  ethune/
• http//library.thinkquest.org/10320/Bethune.htm
• http//www.greatwomen.org/women.php?actionviewone
  id18
• http//www.africawithin.com/bios/mary_bethune.htm

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Resources on Bethune

• http//www.nps.gov/archive/mamc/bethune/welcome/fr
  ame.htm
• http//www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAbethune.ht
  m
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_McLeod_Bethune
• http//www.newfoundations.com/GALLERY/Bethune.html
  

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Books on Bethune

• Davis, M. W. ed. Contributions of Black women to
  America, Vol. II, Columbia, SC Kenday Press,
  Inc., 1982.
• Hanson, Joyce. Mary McLeod Bethune Black Womens
  Political Activism. Columbia, MO University of
  Missouri Press, 2003
• McCluskey, Audrey Thomas and Smith E. M. Eds.
  Mary McLeod Bethune Building a Better World
  Essays and Selected Documents. Bloomington
  Indiana University Press, 1999

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