Transcript Mary McLeod Bethune (1875

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 Mary’s 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
 Mary’s hospital also had a program that
provides training to black girls in nursing
 The mission of Mary’s 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 BehuneCookman 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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Bethune’s 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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Bethune’s 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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Bethune’s Philosophy of Education
 She used both Booker T. Washington and W.
E. B. Dubois’s 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/OnlineClassroo
m/MaryBethune/
 http://library.thinkquest.org/10320/Bethune.htm
 http://www.greatwomen.org/women.php?action
=viewone&id=18
 http://www.africawithin.com/bios/mary_bethune
.htm
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Resources on Bethune
 http://www.nps.gov/archive/mamc/bethune/welcome/
frame.htm
 http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAbethune.h
tm
 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
Women’s 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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