Mary McLeod Bethune: American Educator, Activist and Political Leader (1875-1955)

Mary McLeod Bethune was an American educator, activist, and political leader who dedicated her life to advancing the causes of education and civil rights for Black Americans.

Early Life

Mary Jane McLeod  was born on July 10, 1875, in Mayesville, South Carolina to parents, Samuel and Patsy McLeod, both former slaves, who owned and farmed their own land. She was one of seventeen children and was the first of their children to be born after slavery was abolished. Her older siblings were all born into slavery. Mary Jane lived with her family, a total of nineteen people, in a three room house. She spent most of her time as a young child working in the cotton fields, helping out on the family farm. 

Longing To Learn

In 1884, at the age of nine, Mary Jane accompanied her mother to work. There she was allowed to play with the daughters of her mother’s employer in the playhouse reportedly built by her father. While in the playhouse, Mary Jane was able to play with any toy she desired. While playing, she noticed a book that piqued her interest. At that time, it was illegal for black people to read and write. Mary Jane was unaware of this law. She grabbed the book and asked one of the little girls, “What is an A?” The little girl slammed the book shut and yelled, “ Don’t you know reading is for White folks? You can’t never read. You’re black.” Later her mother would explain to her why black people weren’t allowed to read. This made Mary Jane even more determined to learn how to read. 

When Mary Jane was eleven, she was selected to attend Emma Wilson’s School for Negroes held in a small cabin in Mayesville. The school was established by the Missions for Freedmen of the Trinity Presbyterian Church. The mission intended for one child from each home to attend the school. Initially her parents were reluctant but her grandmother advocated for her to be the chosen child of their household. To get to the school, Mary had to walk six miles to reach the school and six miles back home. Miss Wilson taught the students math and reading. These skills later became very valuable as it helped Mary with calculating the weight of the cotton bags at the time of sale. This helped to prevent store owners from cheating her father when it came to pricing the cotton he sold. Because he couldn’t read or had no knowledge of math, he was often cheated by the store owners. Mary often taught her family some of the things she learned in school. She taught her mother to read her Bible and her father to calculate the weight of his bales of cotton. She also even taught a few white male farmers how to calculate the weight of their items so they wouldn’t be cheated. Mary Jane graduated from the school at the age of eleven. 

After completing her education at Miss Emma’s school, Mary received a scholarship to attend Scotia Seminary, a boarding school in Concord, North Carolina. There she studied English, Latin, Math and Science. She took courses in music where she excelled and was taught to use utensils and other items she wasn’t accustomed to using. When Mary visited home, she again taught her family everything she learned. 

Mary was characterized as a serious person who enjoyed reading and learning new things. She envisioned herself becoming a teacher. She also had a dream of becoming a missionary in Africa.

A Dream UnRealized

Mary longed to become a missionary and travel to Africa to teach the people to lead a healthy and productive life. She attended Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, where she was the only black student, to accomplish this goal but after completing her studies, Mary, unlike the other students, was not given an assignment. She applied to the mission board to become a missionary, but was told there were no openings form Negro Missionaries in Africa. This greatly disappointed Mary and was considered one of the greatest disappointments in her life. 

After returning home to Mayesville, Mary opened Miss Wilson’s School, as it was closed during fall, and began to teach the local children in her area. She later applied for a job teaching at Haines Institute in Augusta, Georgia, a private school for black people. 

A School of Her Own

“My life’s work lay not in Africa but in my own county.” – Mary McLeod Bethune

At only 24 years old, Mary developed the desire to open her own school to teach her people. To make this desire a reality, she began associating with people who have opened schools themselves and others capable of helping her with funding. Her first approach was to connect with Dr. Madison C. B. Mason, the head of the Methodist Freedman’s Aid and Southern Education Society. The role of this organization was to raise money for schools. When Dr. Mason expressed his opinion that he believed it was unnecessary to open another black private school, Mary then decided she could help improve existing schools. She later applied for a teaching position at Kendall Institute at Sumter in South Carolina, with the goal to improve the school. There she met her husband, Albertus Bethune who was also a teacher. They later started a school together. Mrs. Bethune later moved to Palatka, Florida with son in tow to start a mission school. She felt she could do more to help her people so she set out on a mission to find a location to start a new school. She stumbled upon Daytona, FL and felt she could make tremendous strides in helping the children of that area. Initially, Mrs. Bethune was discouraged from starting a school in that area. She was told that black people should stay in their place. But she refused to be discouraged and continued on her mission to educate black children. 

The school that would become Daytona Normal and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls, later changed to “The School” was started in a small rundown cottage Mary convinced a white man to rent to her for $5.00 a month with $1.50 down payment. Mary and her son slept upstairs and she conducted the school downstairs. Tuition was 50 cents a week. 

Mary was very resourceful in obtaining supplies for the school. When she would shop at the local stores, she would ask that each item be wrapped in paper. This paper would be used as writing paper in the school. For ink, to write, Mary used boiled down elderberries. For writing utensils, she used feathers for quill pens and burned wood to charcoal for pencils. For her desk, she used an old packing case. To continuously fund the school, she sold sweet potato pies and sometimes received money from black people in the community eager to support her efforts. The school opened its doors on October 3, 1904. 

As the school grew, Mary needed additional funding. She would often go door to door soliciting donations from people in the community. She also partnered with James N. Gamble of Proctor and Gamble who became a trustee of the school. With the financial support from James Gamble, Mary made the decision to stop renting and instead buy land and build her school from the ground up. She found a swampy dumping ground known as Hell’s Hole, located at the edge of the black district. With a down payment of $5.00, she purchased the property for two hundred dollars. The school was constructed with the help of friends of the school at no cost to Mary. The school’s curriculum educated students through high school in homemaking, teaching and nursing.

In addition to educating young girls, Mary started evening classes when she discovered that some of the adults who would drop in at the school couldn’t read or write. She also started a special group for married couples. 

Aside from the school, Mary helped her community by starting five mission schools to help educate the children and families living in the turpentine camps in the area. The children were taught to read and write, the wives learned to cook and the fathers gained the ability to earn better wages to support their families. 

As “The School” continued to grow, so did the need for more financing. To secure financial backing, Mary agreed to merge her school with Cookman Institute at Jacksonville, Florida. The merger took place in 1923 and was finalized in 1925. In 1931, the school was named Bethune-Cookman Collegiate Institute.

The McLeod Hospital

Mary McLeod Bethune started the first black hospital in Daytona Beach, Florida in the early 1900s. Although the need for a hospital to help sick black people was evident, that need would go unfulfilled until one of Mary’s students experienced a medical emergency. The young pupil suffered an acute appendicitis attack that required surgery. The student was denied entry into the nearby hospital’s emergency room due to black people not being allowed in spaces reserved for whites. The student received an operation on the upstairs back porch of the hospital. When Mary went to visit her, the hospital staff would not allow her to come in through the front entrance and she refused to go in through the back door. This incident led Mary to start the McLeod Hospital, named in honor of her parents. With the help of a sponsor of her school, she purchased a lot with a small cottage. Under the supervision of Dr. T.A. Adams, a black doctor from Daytona, Florida, the cottage was converted to a two-bed hospital. It later grew to about 26 beds and later instituted a training school for nurses. The hospital served the black community of Daytona for over twenty years.

Family, Death and Legacy

Mary Jane McLeod married Albertus Bethune in January of 1900. They met while teaching together at Kendall Institute at Sumter in South Carolina. They had one son, Albert McLeod Bethune, born on February 3, 1901. She also had one grandson and six great grandchildren.

On May 18, 1955, Mary McLeod Bethune passed away in Daytona Beach, Florida, but her legacy still lives on today.  Bethune’s most notable achievement was the founding of Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida. Despite facing significant financial challenges, she worked tirelessly to raise funds and build a robust educational program that served as a model for African American education. The Mary McLeod Bethune Scholarship, named in her honor, was established to provide financial assistance to undergraduate students attending select colleges and universities in Florida, to include Bethune-Cookman University. This scholarship still exists today. Bethune’s commitment to education, equality, and social justice continue to inspire people today, and her impact on American history and society is immeasurable.

Other Notable Accomplishments and Contributions:

• In 1904, she founded Daytona Normal and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls
• Founded the Mary McLeod Hospital and Training School for Nurses (At that time the only school of its kind that served African American women on the east coast)
• In 1979, she was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, by President Jimmy Carter. 
• Founded the National Council of Negro Women in 1935, an organization dedicated to advancing the lives and rights of African American women. This organization still exists today. 
• Assisted with integrating the Red Cross.
• Lobbied for integrating the Civilian Pilot Training Program and to bring the Program to  the campuses of historically Black colleges and universities, which led to graduating some of the first black pilots in the country.
• Served as an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on minority affairs, playing a crucial role in shaping some of his policies on civil rights and education. 
• Committed civil rights activist, advocating for voting rights and equal treatment under the law for African Americans.

Sources

Book : Mary McLeod Bethune Educator By Bernice Anderson Poole