Black History Month: Remembering Mary McLeod Bethune

Born the 15th of 17 children of former slaves in Maysville, South Carolina, Mary Jane McLeod Bethune eventually became a prominent educator, presidential advisor and political activist. As a child, Bethune quickly discovered education’s relationship to political and economic freedom through reading and writing. She was once ordered by a white child to put down a book after insisting that she could not read. Unlike her parents and siblings, Bethune was born free and was fortunate to be formally educated at the Maysville School, a missionary school for African Americans. Shortly after graduating from the Maysville School, Bethune continued her education on a scholarship at the Scotia Seminary for Girls in Concord, North Carolina. After graduating from Scotia, Bethune initially wanted to be a Christian missionary in Africa. After teaching and working among blacks she realized that “Africans in America needed Christ and school just as much as Negroes in Africa…My life work lay not in Africa but in my own country.”

Interested? Read more about Mary McLeod Bethune here
And remember folks, it's not just Black History, it's American History



Article snippet and photo from http://www.blackpast.org