Mary McLeod Bethune was a child of former slaves who lived in a cotton farm in Mayesville, South Carolina. She was the 15th child out of 17 siblings, most of who worked picking cotton. Bethune was always eager to study, and when missionaries founded a school 8 miles away from her home, she didn’t hesitate to join and walked the distance every day [1][5]. As the only educated child in her family, she took on the task of teaching her siblings [1]. This built a foundation for her passion for tutoring.

She graduated from the Scotia Seminary for Girls in North Carolina in 1893 and attended Dwight L. Moody’s Institute for Home and Foreign Missions in Chicago in 1894, where she was the only Black female student [1][7]. She then moved to Augusta, Georgia, to share her knowledge as a schoolteacher [5]. But in 1904, after she got married to another teacher and moved to Florida, Bethune decided to start her own school for girls [3]. She was extremely passionate about her project and a lack of budgets (she only had $1.50 when she started) wasn’t an obstacle for her, so she built the desks and benches herself [2][4]. She used the Three H’s approach, in other words, she wanted “[her girls] to be ...trained in Head, Hand and Heart. Their heads to think, their hands to work, and their hearts to have faith.” [8]. The school only started with just five students, but little by little grew to Bethune-Cookman College with over 400 students, when it merged with the Cookman Institute for Men of Jacksonville in 1923 [7]. Today it’s a recognized institution titled Bethune-Cookman University.

However, education wasn’t her only means of fighting for African American women’s rights. As champions of gender and racial equal rights, Bethune and other African American activists faced opposition from major suffrage organizations, which didn’t accept women of color into the fight, and many other civil rights organizations which reluctantly welcomed discussions on Black women’s voting rights [8]. Nevertheless, neither of these were true barriers for Black suffragists, who saw gender and race discriminations as intertwined issues, and as a result, they founded a number of Black Suffrage organizations [1]. Bethune kept up with her associates and started attending National Associations of Colored Women (NACW), and during one of their annual conferences, in 1909, she gave a speech about her school. NACW’s president Mary Church Terrell, was impressed with her determination and charisma, and foresaw Bethune taking on a presidential position one day [8]. 

In 1912, Bethune officially joined the NACW, and 5 years later was elected as the president of its Florida chapter [6][7]. However, despite the efforts of Black suffragists, following the 19th amendment, African American women were still rejected in voting polls through poll taxes and literacy tests. To counter these ruses, Bethune raised funds door-to-door to pay the tax of 100 Black women and conducted evening reading classes in response to the literacy tests. As a result, she led a procession with 100 female followers to the polls to vote for the first time in the Daytona mayoral election in 1922. [6][8]. But Mary McLeod Bethune didn’t stop there, and 13 years later she founded her own organization called the National Council of Colored Women (NCNW) [7].

Mary McLeod Bethune died of a heart attack at the age of 79. On the day that would have been her 99th birthday, her legacy was honored with a memorial statue placed in Lincoln Park in Washington D.C. [5]. As a passionate educator, she would be delighted to find out that her institution is still running, internationally recognized, and is even providing scholarships. As we now know, education and the suffrage movement were her means of fighting towards the egalitarian future. And She Grows It™ would like to use this as an opportunity to remind readers that the rights to voting and education are precious, and have always been born out of struggle.

Authors: Dr. Ashley Milton, Alyssa Kalac, Marina Tsoumpa

References

1. Biography (2014). Mary McLeod Bethune. [online] Biography. Available at: https://www.biography.com/activist/mary-mcleod-bethune. 

2. Jones, M.S. (2020). Mary McLeod Bethune Was at the Vanguard of More Than 50 Years of Black Progress. [online] Smithsonian Magazine. Available at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/mary-mcleod-bethune-vanguard-more-than-50-years-black-progress-180975202/ 

3. Michals, D.D. (2015). Mary McLeod Bethune. [online] National Women’s History Museum. Available at: https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/mary-mcleod-bethune. 

4. PBP (2020). The extraordinary life of Mary McLeod Bethune: From the daughter of slaves to adviser to a president. [online] The Palm Beach Post. Available at: https://eu.palmbeachpost.com/story/lifestyle/2020/09/01/mary-mcleod-bethune-one-floridas-earliest-social-justice-pioneers/5661975002/ 

5. Poehler, A. (2020). Mary McLeod Bethune, “The First Lady of the Struggle.” [online] Medium. Available at: https://amysmartgirls.com/mary-mcleod-bethune-the-first-lady-of-the-struggle-c2750d5e7a10 

6. Rob, A. (2017). Mary Bethune: From Educator To Presidential Aide. [online] Black History Month 2020. Available at: https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/science-and-medicine/mary-mcleod-bethune-educator-to-presidential-aide/ 

7. SMO (2020). Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955) | Turning Point Suffragist Memorial. [online] Suffragist Memorial Organization. Available at: https://suffragistmemorial.org/mary-mcleod-bethune-1875-1955/ 

8. SRPS (2014). Mary McLeod Bethune: suffrage and civil rights work. [online] Mary McLeod Bethune. Available at: https://selfrescuingprincesssociety.blogspot.com/2014/07/mary-mcleod-bethune-suffrage-and-civil.html