NCNW Founder Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune

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Young Miss Bethune

The fifteenth of seventeen children born to formerly enslaved parents, Mary McLeod Bethune believed deeply in education as the main route out of poverty for herself and other African Americans.
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​on the history of Bethune-Cookman University ​

Bethune-Cookman University Founder

​​In 1904, Bethune founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute, a school for Black girls in Daytona, Florida, that gave students the tools they needed to become community leaders. By 1929, that institution had blossomed into Bethune-Cookman College.
Source: Smithsonian American Womens History Museum
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My philosophy of education is the basic principle upon which my life has been built - that is the three-fold training of head, hand, and heart. I believe in a rounded education with a belief in the dignity and refinement of labor - in doing well whatever task is assigned to me. A belief in a spiritual undergirding of all my efforts and a clear, sane mental development.
​                               - Dr. Bethune
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With only $1.50 and faith Mary McCleod Bethune partnered to create a great learning institution, Bethune-Cookman University. This is one of over 100 History Black Colleges and Universities  (HBCU).​
Source: Information from Bethune-Cookman website

First African American Woman to head a Federal Agency Division

In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her director of the Division of Negro Affairs in the National Youth Administration, a New Deal agency established to aid unemployed African American youth during the Depression.  She was the first African American woman to head a division of a federal agency. ​
Source: Smithsonian American Womens History Museum

Founder of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) 

Bethune strongly believed that if black women presented a united front, then black women could become a powerful force for promoting political and social change. On December 5, 1935, in New York City, Bethune presented her idea. The women in attendance at this meeting were representatives of 29 diverse black women’s organizations and they agreed to establish the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW). NCNW was incorporated on July 25, 1936, in Washington, DC.​​
Source: NCNW Headquarter 
PBS News Hour 2022: ​A new statue unveiled in the U.S. Capitol marks a historic first. Civil rights pioneer.  Mary McLeod Bethune is the first Black American to represent a state in Statuary Hall.
Florida lawmakers voted to remove a statue representing a Confederate general and replace it with one of Bethune. Her granddaughter, Evelyn Bethune, joins Lisa Desjardins to discuss.
Renowned educator and reformer
Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955) dedicated her life to organizing and empowering African American women
​to work for equality.