The First Lady of Neogro America
Among the many holes in my reading are history books about black women. To address this deficit, I read Mary Mcleod Bethune: The PanAfricanist by Howard History Professor Ashley Roberty Preston. Mary McLeod Bethune was born in 1875 as the 15th of 17 children (a different time). Preston provides details of Bethune’s journey from South Carolina to becoming a prominent figure in the fight for racial equality. She is one of those 19th/20th-century black people who survived and accomplished things that made my puny degrees seem like I was a slacker.
Bethune wanted to serve as a missionary in Africa but never got the chance. This desire fueled her pan-Africanism, which the book spends most of its pages detailing. She embraced pan-Africanism, fostering international connections that would later shape her global vision. n 1904, Bethune started Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in 1904 with an incredibly modest sum of only $1.50. (how do you do that?) The school eventually became co-ed and merged with Cookman Institute in 1923, forming the precursor to Bethune-Cookman College.
Bethune’s leadership of the National Council of Negro Women and her roles in the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration and the United Nations allowed her to address issues such as military diversity, decolonization, suffrage, and imperialism. Her involvement with Black women’s organizations extended her influence beyond the United States, creating personal connections across Cuba, Haiti, India, and Africa. Her work as a Pan-Africanist broadened the scope of Black women’s organizations, fostering solidarity among Africans worldwide.
Among the things that did not surprise me was how sexist DuBois and Walter White were. Lord DuBois was a piece of work.
Bethune’s legacy, encapsulated in her words, “For I am my mother’s daughter and the drums of Africa still beat in my heart,” continues to inspire and resonate, underscoring her enduring impact on the fight for racial and gender equality.
Highly recommend.
