Mary McLeod Bethune

African American Activism: A History of "The First Lady of Struggle"

Apr 16, 2008

As the "First Lady of the Struggle," African American political and social activist Mary McLeod Bethune focused on the struggle for gender and racial equality.

Mary McLeod Bethune

A self-described “womanist,” social and political activist Mary McLeod Bethune devoted her life to empowering African American women. Known as the “First Lady of the Struggle,” she founded her own school, the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute in 1904, later re-named Bethune-Cookman College in 1923.

Born on 10 July, 1875, the fifteenth of seventeen children to Sam and Patsy McLeod, two former slaves, Mary McLeod grew up on a rice and cotton farm in rural South Carolina. Although she spent her early years working in the rice and cotton fields, at the age of eleven, she learned to read and write in the one-room schoolhouse of the Mission Board of the Presbyterian Church. After completing her education in Chicago, she returned to South Carolina to teach.

In 1904, she moved to Daytona, Florida, and established the Daytona Educational and Industrial School for Negro Girls, which focused on both education and housekeeping skills. Originally a school with just five students, Bethune’s institute soon became a success, moving to a 42-acre campus with fourteen buildings and 400 students within several years. The school became self-sufficient with its own farm, and then a co-educational college in 1923 with the merger of the Cookman Institute in Jacksonville with the Daytona Institute.

In addition, Bethune began to accept leadership roles in suffrage organizations. In 1912, Bethune joined the Equal Suffrage League, part of the National Association of Colored Women. She felt that black women needed to have a more dominant voice, or at least a voice that rivaled their white counterparts. Prior to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, she led a drive to register black voters in Daytona Beach. Despite pressure from the Ku Klux Klan, she led one hundred voters to the poll on the morning of the election.

In 1924, she became president of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), an office she held for two consecutive terms. She attended the Child Welfare Conference in 1928 at the request of President Calvin Coolidge, and served on the White House Conference on Child Health at the request of President Herbert Hoover in 1930. In 1935, she created the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), and then became Special Advisor on Minority Affairs during President Franklin Roosevelt’s terms in office, from 1935 to 1944. Her efforts brought the concept of rights for black women to the forefront of national politics; the NCNW began with only eight organizations, and by 1949, when Bethune stepped down from the leadership of the NCNW, the organization included twenty-two smaller organizations.

Between 1936 and 1944, she directed the division of Negro Affairs in the National Youth Administration (NYA), an organization designed to offer youth between 16 and 24 a potential opportunity of a job. In 1938, she became director of the NYA Division of Negro Affairs, the highest federal office ever held by a black woman, and only one of 20 higher level federal positions occupied by a woman.

Bethune also became closely involved in war efforts as part of her NYA activities. In 1942, she persuaded the U.S. War Department to allow black women to be commissioned as officers in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, or WAAC. Her efforts as part of the Women's Army for National Defense, beginning in 1944, reflected the organization's motto, "Working for Victory, Planning for Peace." These efforts reflected the importance of fighting racism and discrimination both at home and abroad.

After the end of World War II, she joined two other African Americans, W. E. B. DuBois and Walter White, as part of a U.S. delegation to assist in the development of the UN charter in April 1945. Internationally, her efforts were recognized as well; she received the Medal of Honor and Merit from Haiti in 1949. She also represented President Harry Truman at the inauguration ceremonies for President William S. Tubman of Liberia in 1952, where she received Liberia's highest honor, the Commander of the Order of the Star of Africa, during her visit.

Bibliography

Botsch, Carol Sears. “Mary McLeod Bethune.” Online. University of South Carolina-Aiken. http://www.usca.edu/aasc/bethune.htm

Cognard-Black, Jennifer. Book Review. "Mary McLeod Bethune: Building a Better World." National Women's Studies Association Journal 14.2 (2002): 207-211.

Davis, Marianna. Contributions of Black Women to America. Kenday Press, 1982.

Hanson, Joyce A. Mary McLeod Bethune and Black Women's Political Activism Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 2003.

Pertillar, Tammy Lynn. “Mary McLeod Bethune: Visionary Activist.” The Brown Quarterly 1.1 (1996). Online. http://brownvboard.org/brwnqurt/01-1/01-1b.htm

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