Education & empowerment

Mary McLeod Bethune Circle

Honoring Mary McLeod Bethune

Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955) was the fifteenth of seventeen children born to formerly enslaved parents in South Carolina. In 1904 she opened a school for Black girls in Daytona Beach with $1.50 and five students; it grew into Bethune-Cookman University. She founded the National Council of Negro Women and served as an adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of his "Black Cabinet." Mary shows us that education is the foundation of economic power.

Invest in the human soul. Who knows, it might be a diamond in the rough.