Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, Founder of National Council of Negro Women, Inc. (NCNW, INc.) and Bethune Cookman University, gave unstintingly of her time and talent to many important causes.  One of those causes was ASALH, The Association for the Study of African American Life and History, out of which grew Black History Month.

 

Like Carter G. Woodson, Founder of ASALH (who is known as the “Father of Black History”), Dr. Bethune’s parents were enslaved.  They both understood how important gaining a proper education is when striving to make the most out of one’s divine right of freedom.  From 1936 to 1951, Dr. Bethune served as the first woman president of ASALH.  She labored closely with Dr. Woodson to bring continuity and stability to ASALH.

 

Dr. Bethune was an American educator, stateswoman, philanthropist, humanitarian and civil rights activist best known for starting a private school for African-American students in Daytona Beach, Florida.  She also was appointed as a national adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of what was known as his Black Cabinet.

 

Dr. Bethune was known as “The First Lady of The Struggle”, because of her commitment to gain better lives for African Americans.  After working on the presidential campaign for Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, she was invited as a member of his Black Cabinet.  She advised him on concerns of black people and helped share Roosevelt’s

message and achievements with blacks, who had historically been Republican voters

since the Civil War. 

 

At the time, blacks had been largely disenfranchised in the South since the turn of the

century, so she was speaking to black voters across the North.  Upon her death,

columnist Louis E. Martin said, “She gave out faith and hope as if they were pills and she some sort of doctor.”

 

Honors include designation of her home in Daytona Beach as a National Historic Landmark, her house in Washington, D. C. as a National Historic Site, and the installation of a memorial sculpture of her in Lincoln Park in Washington, D. C.

 

The Legislature of Florida is expected to designate her in 2018 as the subject of one of Florida’s two statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection.

 

 

Dr. Bethune’s words ring as profoundly today as they did in 1955, when she included them in her Last Will and Testament.

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“I Leave you respect for the use of power - We live in a world that respects the use of power above all things.  Power, intelligently directed, can lead to more freedom. 

Unwisely directed, it can be a dreadful destructive force.  During my lifetime I have seen the power of the Negro grown enormously.  It has always been my first concern that this

power should be placed on the side of human justice.”

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