Mary McLeod Bethune was a teacher, women’s rights activist, and civil rights leader. Photo Credit: NMAH, Smithsonian Institution

Many fine educators have also made significant contributions to their communities and to society as a whole. One of these is Mary McLeod Bethune, an African American teacher who was was also a women’s rights activist and civil rights leader.

Mary McLeod Bethune was born on July 10, 1875, to former slaves in a log cabin on a plantation in Maysville, South Carolina. Her parents were Samuel and Patsy McLeod. Mary was the last of the couple’s 17 children, and the only one of the McLeod children to be born into freedom.

When the Civil War was won, Mary’s mother worked for her former owner until she could buy the land on which the McLeod family grew cotton. By nine years of age, young Mary could pick 250 pounds of cotton a day.

Even as a young child, Mary showed an unusual interest in books and reading. However, in those days it was rare for African Americans to receive an education. Nevertheless, a charitable organization interested in providing educational opportunities for Black children established a school near Mary’s home. Her parents could scrape together only enough money to pay the tuition for one of their children, and Mary was chosen. The future educator earned a scholarship to attend the Scotia Seminary, a boarding school in North Carolina. She graduated from there in 1894. She also attended Dwight Moody’s Institute for Home and Foreign Missions in Chicago, Illinois. Her studies there spanned two years.

When she grew up, Mary retained her strong desire to extend educational opportunities to other African Americans. She established her career as a teacher. While teaching in South Carolina, she married fellow teacher Albertus Bethune. The union produced one son in 1899.

In 1904 Mary founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls in Daytona Beach, Florida. Starting out with only five students, she helped expand the school to more than 250 students over the next few years. Today, this school is known Bethune-Cookman University.

In her later years, Mary became a close friend of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and also a trusted adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt. In recognition of her outstanding abilities, the President made her a member of his unofficial “Black Cabinet.” He also appointed her the head of the National Youth Administration in 1936. In 1937 the indefatigable educator organized a conference on the Problems of the Negro and Negro Youth, and she fought tirelessly to end discrimination and lynching. In 1940, Mary became the Vice President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons (NAACP), a position she held for the rest of her life. In 1945, she was appointed by President Harry Truman to be the only woman of color present at the founding meeting of the United Nations.

This celebrated educator passed away peacefully on May 18, 1955. For all her accomplishments, Mary McLeod Bethune is truly a Chalkboard Champion. To read more about her, see this link at the website for the National Women’s History Museum.