Mary Mcleod Bethune Speech

One of seventeen children Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune was born July 20, 1875 to former slave parents on a cotton plantation in Mayesville, South Carolina as Mary Jane McLeod. McLeod grew up picking cotton with her family but at an early age showed an interest in her education and decided to attend a one room schoolhouse named Trinity Mission School the only school in Mayesville. During this time McLeod school teacher Emma Jane Wilson became her mentor and support to assist her in attending two Bible Institutes, Scotia Seminary in Concord, North Carolina in 1888-1894, which became Barber-Scotia College, and Dwight Moody’s Institute in Chicago, Illinois, which is now the Moody Bible Institute. During this time McLeod became very passionate about becoming a missionary in

It was stated by Louis E. Martin upon her death that “She gave out faith and hope as if they were pills and she some sort of doctor.” As an educator and a social worker Bethune dedicated her life as a public servant to better the lives of others. She served as the first African American woman to serve in a president cabinet and through her years of public services she worked with four presidents. Through those connections she was able to influence decision that affected the great good of all. Bethune diverse government and organizational service inspired a new generation of women civil rights leaders. Bethune sums it up in her pledge of the National Council of Negro Women “It is our pledge to make a lasting contribution to all that is finest and best in America, to cherish and enrich her heritage of freedom and progress by working for the integration of all her people regardless of race, creed, or national origin, into her spiritual, social, cultural, civic, and economic life, and thus aid her to achieve the glorious destiny of a true and unfettered democracy.”— Founder Mary McLeod Bethune's Pledge for