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Mary McLeod Bethune
This is the challenging and inspired true story of a little girl who was determined to learn to read, and who went on to be a teacher, the founder of a college, an adviser to statesmen, and a great humanitarian. Mary McLeod Bethune was the fifteenth child of hardworking and god fearing parents. She was the first of their children to be born free. Her ancestry was wholly of African origin, a point of pride throughout her life.Mrs. Bethune worked untiringly to restore—through education—her people's faith in the magnificent heritage that is rightfully theirs. During the many years of and tribulation, she refused to give up her fondest dream—her own school for Negro children. And, as a shining monument to her hard work and faith, she has given to black youth the thriving institution of Bethune- Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Florida.
- GenresBiography
316 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1957
15 people are currently reading
119 people want to read
About the author
Emma Gelders Sterne
39 books4 followersAlso known as:
-Emily Broun
-Josephine James (works written in collaboration with daughter Barbara Lindsay)
-Emily Broun
-Josephine James (works written in collaboration with daughter Barbara Lindsay)
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 13, 2017
I have come to have such an admiration for Mary McLeod Bethune that I am adjusting the itinerary on my next trip to Florida so that I can visit the campus and museum of the college that she founded. How we need more women like Mary in the world and I am going to make a real effort to see that my faith is as solid as Mary's and that I then move forward in that faith to accomplish the things I need to do in order to feel as though I am making a difference.
Some things I want to remember:
"Patsy had a habit of talking to her God - giving advice as well as asking."
"Calling a person by a title showed that you respected them. The white woman who was chairman of the meeting was forward-looking and sincerely concerned. She meant well, but never in all her life had she called a colored person by anything but a first name. 'Mary's amendment is accepted,' she announced, with a gracious nod in the direction of the dignified black woman sitting on the front row just across the side from the wife of President Roosevelt. Slowly Mary McLeod Bethune rose and addressed the chair. 'Madam Chairman,' she said, 'my name is Mrs. Mary McLeod Bethune. The secretary will please be instructed to record it so.'"
"'Someday,' Mary said, 'I'm going to go to Africa. I'm going to be a missionary and bring our people to Jesus.' 'You got the 'somedays' again?' Sally teased, but once more Patsy interrupted. 'I told you Mary is different. She's going to have the somedays till she dies.'"
"The Lord means you shall have an education and He means you shall be dressed fitting for His work. You ain't pretty but you're a good girl to look at. You fix up the best you can and respect your body as you do your soul. The Lord will provide."
"Miss Bower's people were white; yet they had had to fight for their freedom too. They were oppressed and they struck out. And claimed Unalienable Rights...Mary didn't know exactly what the word meant. She repeated it to herself several times so she would remember it and find out. Unalienable...Whatever it meant, it was a beautiful word on the tongue. And not all white people were oppressors. Some, like Miss Bowers, remembered even when they had one their unalienable rights that other people still had their rights to win!"
"When I was a little thing, I remember a big rock in the creek, down by the slave-quarters. My mama used to set me on top of it - it were that big, like an island. But the creek waters kept beatin' against it, crunchin' off a piece here, a piece there. Before I got sold away form there, the drops of water had cut that big rock down to size, the everlasting tiny drops of water. Last time I saw it, that rock wasn't bigger than a pebble. That's what the white people done to the remembrance our people brought from Africa. They dribbled it away until it were no more than a pebble or a grain of sand. Bless you, child, they had to. Even the whites - the most of 'em - have got a conscience. Didn't they receive the word of God straight from the Bible? They know the Bible say all men are brothers. But they want hands to till the fields and dig the ditches and cook their victuals and wash their clothes so they can wear the clothes and eat good and read the Book. They come fetch black hands from the kingdoms of Africa. Conscience say that wouldn't be a brotherly act if the black hands belonged to men. The devil whisper: 'Make them blacks leave behind all that makes 'em proud,' And they done it, bit by bit, like the water crumble that rock. White people never did know about Africa neither, same as water didn't know about the rock it crumble away. But the glory of our people, it were real."
"Education," she said to herself, "it's Greek and a toothbrush. Learning for the sake of learning but learning for life's sake, too."
"Studying," Dwight Moody said, "goes deeper than mere reading. There are surface nuggets to be gathered but the best of the gold is underneath, and it takes time and labor to secure it."
"In a city teeming with people of African ancestry there was no contact and no sense of kinship between the men and women preparing to spend their lives converting Africans and Negroes living in the next street or walking along the sidewalk whistling a tune whose rhythms were borrowed from African drums."
"Vocational training," she wrote later, "includes not only the technique of actual work, but intelligent comprehension of duties as a citizen and the ability to partake of the higher spiritual life of this world."
"'Why is it, Mama, that it's the women of our race who seem to look farther ahead to what's needed?' Patsy looked up from her ironing. 'Farther than menfolk? Is that what you mean, daughter? Ain't that nature? A woman carry a child in the womb and Jesus say for her to think ahead for that child. 'Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor what raiment ye shall put on. Is not life more than meat and the body more than raiment?' He says. And you sit thinking of a world of goodness and love. You think of your children multiplied by millions. God sharpens your eyes to the needs of the world. Childbearing, working, tryin' to move the world forward a little bit - they all got to go together, daughter.'"
"Enter to learn; depart to serve." (Words carved in stone above the door of Mary's school.)
"I'm nothing out of the ordinary. I'm poor and I'm ugly and not awful smart. There's a thousand people with better brains and better education that I have. But the Lord has chosen me for an instrument - and every ounce of Mary Bethune is going to fight on the side of the Lord!"
"If you know well the beginning, the end will not trouble you much." -Old African Proverb
Some things I want to remember:
"Patsy had a habit of talking to her God - giving advice as well as asking."
"Calling a person by a title showed that you respected them. The white woman who was chairman of the meeting was forward-looking and sincerely concerned. She meant well, but never in all her life had she called a colored person by anything but a first name. 'Mary's amendment is accepted,' she announced, with a gracious nod in the direction of the dignified black woman sitting on the front row just across the side from the wife of President Roosevelt. Slowly Mary McLeod Bethune rose and addressed the chair. 'Madam Chairman,' she said, 'my name is Mrs. Mary McLeod Bethune. The secretary will please be instructed to record it so.'"
"'Someday,' Mary said, 'I'm going to go to Africa. I'm going to be a missionary and bring our people to Jesus.' 'You got the 'somedays' again?' Sally teased, but once more Patsy interrupted. 'I told you Mary is different. She's going to have the somedays till she dies.'"
"The Lord means you shall have an education and He means you shall be dressed fitting for His work. You ain't pretty but you're a good girl to look at. You fix up the best you can and respect your body as you do your soul. The Lord will provide."
"Miss Bower's people were white; yet they had had to fight for their freedom too. They were oppressed and they struck out. And claimed Unalienable Rights...Mary didn't know exactly what the word meant. She repeated it to herself several times so she would remember it and find out. Unalienable...Whatever it meant, it was a beautiful word on the tongue. And not all white people were oppressors. Some, like Miss Bowers, remembered even when they had one their unalienable rights that other people still had their rights to win!"
"When I was a little thing, I remember a big rock in the creek, down by the slave-quarters. My mama used to set me on top of it - it were that big, like an island. But the creek waters kept beatin' against it, crunchin' off a piece here, a piece there. Before I got sold away form there, the drops of water had cut that big rock down to size, the everlasting tiny drops of water. Last time I saw it, that rock wasn't bigger than a pebble. That's what the white people done to the remembrance our people brought from Africa. They dribbled it away until it were no more than a pebble or a grain of sand. Bless you, child, they had to. Even the whites - the most of 'em - have got a conscience. Didn't they receive the word of God straight from the Bible? They know the Bible say all men are brothers. But they want hands to till the fields and dig the ditches and cook their victuals and wash their clothes so they can wear the clothes and eat good and read the Book. They come fetch black hands from the kingdoms of Africa. Conscience say that wouldn't be a brotherly act if the black hands belonged to men. The devil whisper: 'Make them blacks leave behind all that makes 'em proud,' And they done it, bit by bit, like the water crumble that rock. White people never did know about Africa neither, same as water didn't know about the rock it crumble away. But the glory of our people, it were real."
"Education," she said to herself, "it's Greek and a toothbrush. Learning for the sake of learning but learning for life's sake, too."
"Studying," Dwight Moody said, "goes deeper than mere reading. There are surface nuggets to be gathered but the best of the gold is underneath, and it takes time and labor to secure it."
"In a city teeming with people of African ancestry there was no contact and no sense of kinship between the men and women preparing to spend their lives converting Africans and Negroes living in the next street or walking along the sidewalk whistling a tune whose rhythms were borrowed from African drums."
"Vocational training," she wrote later, "includes not only the technique of actual work, but intelligent comprehension of duties as a citizen and the ability to partake of the higher spiritual life of this world."
"'Why is it, Mama, that it's the women of our race who seem to look farther ahead to what's needed?' Patsy looked up from her ironing. 'Farther than menfolk? Is that what you mean, daughter? Ain't that nature? A woman carry a child in the womb and Jesus say for her to think ahead for that child. 'Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor what raiment ye shall put on. Is not life more than meat and the body more than raiment?' He says. And you sit thinking of a world of goodness and love. You think of your children multiplied by millions. God sharpens your eyes to the needs of the world. Childbearing, working, tryin' to move the world forward a little bit - they all got to go together, daughter.'"
"Enter to learn; depart to serve." (Words carved in stone above the door of Mary's school.)
"I'm nothing out of the ordinary. I'm poor and I'm ugly and not awful smart. There's a thousand people with better brains and better education that I have. But the Lord has chosen me for an instrument - and every ounce of Mary Bethune is going to fight on the side of the Lord!"
"If you know well the beginning, the end will not trouble you much." -Old African Proverb
January 19, 2025
Mary McLeod Bethune should be Required Reading.
I enjoyed reading this book. Mary McLeod Bethune is very inspiring.
I have read many books about the Black experience in America, but
none covered the experience from quite like this.
I enjoyed reading this book. Mary McLeod Bethune is very inspiring.
I have read many books about the Black experience in America, but
none covered the experience from quite like this.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews