Pod Insights Stuff You Missed in History Class Mary McLeod Bethune About this episode Mary McLeod Bethune was an educator, activist, and civil servant who dedicated her entire life to the pursuit of racial and gender equality. Her impressive legacy includes schools, legislation, and the formation of the Women's Army Corps.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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0:04 Holly Frey? A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argentix. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:35 Tracy V. Wilson? Long hours, work deadlines, family commitments. You give so much to everyone else. Isn't it time to invest in yourself? The University of Arizona Global Campus is built for working adults with flexible online degree programs designed to fit your life. Your previous education, training, and eligible experience may even help you earn college credit. At UAGC, you can take one accelerated course at a time, helping you move toward your goals in five- and six-week class formats. Visit uagc.edu today.
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2:06 Holly Frey? Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeart Radio.
2:16 Tracy V. Wilson? Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
2:20 Holly Frey? And I'm Holly Frey.
2:21 Tracy V. Wilson? The other day, I was scrolling on my phone and I got to a movie trailer. I did not instantly know what movie this trailer could be for, but then Kerry Washington said, "Soldiers, I am Captain Charity Adams," and I burst into tears. Uh, maybe I was having a day, I don't know, but I was really happy about the idea of the 688 Central Postal Directory Battalion getting a movie. Uh, so happy that I started crying. Uh, and then a few seconds after that, I instantly recognized Mary McLeod Bethune, who was being played by Oprah Winfrey. Mary McLeod Bethune has been on my list for a very long time.
3:06 Tracy V. Wilson? We have gotten tons of listener requests for an episode about her. So this is not a sponsored episode for this movie. I just decided that this whole trailer experience was a sign that I needed to move Mary McLeod Bethune up to the top of the list. We are recording this on December the 17th, so the movie is not out yet. It is scheduled to hit Netflix on December 20th, so it will be out by the time the episode comes out. I have no idea what people will think of this movie once they've seen it, but it did inspire this episode today.
3:42 Holly Frey? Mary Jane McLeod was born on July 10th, 1875, near Maysville, South Carolina. According to most sources, she was the 15th of 17 children born to Samuel and Patsy McLeod. Her parents and older siblings had been enslaved, and some of her oldest siblings had also been sold away from the rest of the family. Once these siblings learned that they had been freed, they made their way back to the farm where Samuel had been enslaved, and from there, they all reunited with Mary's parents, meeting some of their grandchildren for the first time.
4:18 Tracy V. Wilson? Of course, the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1st, 1863, and the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery was ratified on December 6th, 1865. So this was years before Mary Jane McLeod was born. And a lot of writing about her says that she was the first in her family to be free from birth. That idea really seems to be everywhere, including in full-length biographies that have been published about her just over the last few years, but it does not appear to be true. Even if we kind of set aside the Emancipation Proclamation, which Confederate authorities and enslavers might have refused to recognize,
5:01 Tracy V. Wilson? she had at least two older siblings, Kissy and William, who were born after 1865. They're listed on census records for 1870 and 1880, and in 1870, their ages are listed as only 1 and 3. This is something we're going to talk about some more on Friday, because I went down a whole huge rabbit hole about it.
5:25 Holly Frey? Samuel and Patsy were loving, strict, and devoutly religious, welcoming circuit riders whenever they passed through the area, and acting as leaders in their Methodist church. They made their living growing and selling cotton. After the end of the Civil War, Patsy McLeod had continued to work for her former enslaver as a cook until she was able to save up enough money to buy five acres of land. And the family eventually saved up enough to buy 30 more acres. Patsy also took in laundry and did domestic work, and it really took everyone, including the children, to support the family. Before the end of the Civil War, it had been illegal to educate enslaved people in South Carolina. And afterward, many of Mary's older siblings,
6:10 Holly Frey? who were still school-aged, only had the opportunity to go to school when they had access to one for Black students, and also when they weren't needed on the farm.
6:21 Tracy V. Wilson? In an interview that she gave later on in her life, Bethune described herself as different from her siblings, even down to just liking different foods. Her older sisters wanted to get married early, but she really did not. Instead, she described herself as having a missionary spirit and a desire to do things for other people, including doing things like sharing her shoes with children who didn't have any. Her family seems to have seen her as different as well, but they also supported her in that difference. She also really, really wanted to learn how to read. One of her formative experiences in her childhood happened when she accompanied her mother
7:04 Tracy V. Wilson? to work at the home of a white family one day. When Mary picked up a book in the playhouse where this family's children did their schoolwork, one of them told her to put it down because she could not read. And in her words, quote, "It just did something to my pride and to my heart."
7:22 Holly Frey? So in 1885, when 17-year-old Emma Jane Wilson came to the farm looking for children to teach at the newly established Trinity Chapel Presbyterian Mission School in Maysville, Mary was allowed to go. She had to walk four or five miles each way every day to get there. And when she got home, she would try to teach her family everything that she had learned. She also started helping to handle things that required literacy or math skills, like selling the cotton crop. Learning itself was also just a joy. In Bethune's words, quote, "The whole world opened to me when I learned to read."
7:59 Tracy V. Wilson? Wilson was a patient, dedicated, and caring teacher. But within a couple of years, Mary, who sometimes also was called Mary Jane when she was little, she'd learn what she could from the school. But then she learned that a scholarship was available to continue her education at Scotia Seminary, a Presbyterian seminary that's now Barber Scotia College in Concord, North Carolina.
8:24 Tracy V. Wilson? There, she was in the school's chorus and on the debate team, and she was often a soloist at church. She graduated from there on June 13, 1884.
8:35 Holly Frey? Mary Jane McLeod was devoutly religious. She started every day with meditation and scripture reading, and for a long time, her dream had been to become a missionary and to go to Africa. She learned about another scholarship, this time to Dwight Moody's Institute for Home and Foreign Missions in Chicago, Illinois. That's now Moody's Bible Institute. And she found out this was a place where she could train to do that work she had thought of. Her education up to this point had been at schools for Black students, but at the Bible Institute, she was the only Black student. Her coursework included Bible and music study, as well as practical work, doing things like visiting people in their homes, local missions, and jails.
9:20 Tracy V. Wilson? But when she applied to become a missionary in Africa, she was denied. According to her account, later on, the Presbyterian Mission Board told her it did not have any openings for a Black missionary in Africa. She was deeply upset about this, and for a time, she went back home to South Carolina. When the Mission Board told her it had an appointment for her at the Haynes Institute in Augusta, Georgia, she went there.
9:48 Holly Frey? After teaching in Augusta for a while, she moved on to Sumter, South Carolina, to work at another Presbyterian mission school. There, she sang in the church choir, which is where she met Albertus Bethune. They got married on May 6, 1898, and afterward, they moved to Savannah. Their son, Albertus McLeod Bethune, was born there on February 3, 1889.
10:12 Tracy V. Wilson? In most biographies of Mary McLeod Bethune, her husband, Albertus, just sort of disappears, to an extent, her son does as well. She was intensely private about her personal life. This was something that was necessary, given society's expectations of women, especially of Black women, and the need to always be seen as respectable in her public persona. She gave an interview much later on in her life, in which she described her husband as a fine young man with a beautiful tenor voice and an interest in their church activities, but not really in her educational pursuits.
10:51 Tracy V. Wilson? At the same time, in the same interview, she said that their marriage and the birth of their child were not intended to impede the things that she aspired to do. It seems like her husband didn't get in the way of her work, but also didn't really participate in it.
11:10 Holly Frey? Through a church connection, Bethune learned about a parochial school in Palatka, Florida, that needed a teacher, and the family moved there. She also made some extra money selling life insurance to Black families. And she continued doing what we might think of as missionary and social work, like visiting people who were being held in local jails.
11:32 Tracy V. Wilson? In 1902, she started trying to open a school of her own. She wrote to people like Booker T. Washington and Robert Curtis Ogden to try to get their support and funding. This kind of fundraising is something she would continue to do for the rest of her career, including later on, writing to Julius Rosenwald. We talked about Rosenwald's efforts to fund schools for Black children in August 2021, when Holly interviewed Andrew Filer about his book on these schools.
12:02 Holly Frey? In 1904, the family moved to Daytona Beach. Bethune had heard that a school was desperately needed there and also thought there might be more opportunities than she had had in Palatka. She opened the Daytona Beach Literary and Industrial School for Training Negro Girls. The school started out, in her words, with, "five little girls, a dollar and a half, and faith in God." She taught reading, writing, and home economics, and her six-year-old son was also a student. At first, the school occupied one room in a cabin that she was renting. And since they had no furniture, the students sat on dry goods boxes. But this school grew rapidly, and within just two years, she had 250 students.
12:49 Tracy V. Wilson? Sometime around 1907, Bethune's marriage ended for all practical purposes, and her husband returned to South Carolina. There's no real documentation of what happened, but since he died in 1918 of tuberculosis, there's some speculation that maybe he was ill and he needed more care than she could provide for him, so he returned to his family. Bethune never remarried, and she listed her status on the 1910 census as widowed. Her work with the school continued after this, and we'll get into that after a sponsor break.
13:28 Speaker 05 First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?
13:31 Tracy V. Wilson? Hey, everybody, it's Tracy from Stuff You Missed in History Class. That's Alan Goya, a planning engineer at AT&T. He's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, defining the fan's experience. And Alan's master plan made it all possible.
13:51 Speaker 05 It was going to rival anything that was already built, and that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.
13:59 Tracy V. Wilson? That includes field services manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.
14:06 Speaker 06 Through what Alan's whole crew designed, we connected the event visitors to the world.
14:11 Tracy V. Wilson? And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.
14:15 Speaker 06 To actually see the whole stadium light up and data's flowing is a beautiful thing.
14:19 Speaker 05 What the fans experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.
14:23 Tracy V. Wilson? AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.
14:25 Speaker 04 Connecting changes everything. AT&T.
14:28 Tracy V. Wilson? Long hours, work deadlines, family commitments. You give so much to everyone else. Isn't it time to invest in yourself? The University of Arizona Global Campus is built for working adults with flexible online degree programs designed to fit your life. Your previous education, training, and eligible experience may even help you earn college credit. At UAGC, you can take one accelerated course at a time, helping you move toward your goals in five- and six-week class formats. Visit uagc.edu today.
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15:28 Speaker 07 Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by rising star Sienna Spiro. I love the 60s. I feel really jealous that I wasn't alive for it. I'd be interested, like, knowing what that was like and seeing the way culture and art has progressed today. How do you find it? Wait a minute, I'm sorry, I have so many questions. Sorry. You're not nervous, are you? I am nervous. You are? I am. I feel, like, insecure about my experience. I know I shouldn't, but, you know, I'm 20. I haven't really lived my life yet.
16:11 Speaker 07 And then sitting in front of somebody that has lived an enormous life is intimidating. And sometimes I feel like talking about myself is just not as interesting. So that's why I feel a bit nervous. I'll try and, I'll try and ignore it, though. Please, dude. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
16:34 Speaker 03 Hello? Hey, it's me, your wallet. Oh, hey. I was just wondering if we could maybe take it easy this week? Absolutely. Really? Yep. I'm shopping at Food Lion. Wait, you mean low prices? And MVP savings. Oh, you do care. Obviously. Okay, I feel better. Good. Now, let's go get some snacks. At Food Lion, low prices and MVP savings make it easier to shop for what you need without spending more than you have to. When your wallet needs a little TLC, head to your local Food Lion or shop at foodlion.com.
17:16 Tracy V. Wilson? The school Mary McLeod Bethune established in Daytona Beach continued to grow through the early 1900s. And in 1907, she raised money to buy land for a new campus. That was land that the city had previously been using as a dump site, so there was also cleanup involved. The first new building to be constructed there was called Faith Hall, and later additions would include things like an administration building with an auditorium and more classroom space.
17:45 Holly Frey? This on its own was an enormous effort, and it wasn't the only thing that Bethune was doing. In 1907, she also established a mission to provide aid and education to turpentine workers who were living in camps outside of the city. Due to segregation, Daytona Beach and the surrounding area had no hospital that would treat black patients. So in 1911, Bethune opened one, naming it McLeod Hospital after her parents. It started out with just a couple of beds, and it was staffed by doctors as well as students at a nursing program that she also established. That hospital ran until 1927, and during those years, many of its patients received care for free because they had no money to pay.
18:31 Tracy V. Wilson? Bethune realized she needed a partner to help her manage this ever-growing school. And in 1912, she went to New York to try to convince Frances Reynolds Kaiser to come to Florida and work with her. Bethune knew Kaiser by reputation, but not personally. Kaiser was a respected educator who had previously started a school for black children in Florida that had run for four years. When she and Bethune met, Kaiser was director of the White Rose Mission, which was focused on the needs of black women and girls who had just arrived in New York from the South. This mission offered services like travelers' aid, shelter, job training, and assistance in finding work.
19:14 Holly Frey? After they talked, Kaiser agreed to come, and the two women immediately committed themselves to both a personal and a professional relationship. In Bethune's words, pledging their allegiance to God and to each other on bended knees and with clasped hands in her rented room in New York. Bethune and Kaiser lived and worked together for the next 12 years, until Kaiser became disabled due to arthritis and other medical conditions and decided to return to New York.
19:43 Tracy V. Wilson? The 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on August 18th, 1920, giving women the right to vote across the United States. As we've talked about on the show several times before, because of things like discriminatory laws and voter intimidation, in practice, this mostly applied to white women. Recognizing all of this, Bethune started a massive voter registration campaign for black women in Daytona Beach, and in response, she was targeted by the Ku Klux Klan, including Klan members marching on her school while the students were there. She did not back down, though. She also continued to face this kind of harassment and retaliation for her work throughout
20:27 Tracy V. Wilson? her life, including from the Klan, and then later on during the McCarthy era, from people who baselessly accused her of being a communist.
20:36 Holly Frey? By 1920, Bethune's school had grown to the point that it was the second-largest school for black girls and young women in the United States, behind Spelman Seminary in Atlanta. That year, she was also elected to the National Urban League's Executive Board. In 1923, she became the first woman to serve as president of the National Association of Teachers of Colored Schools. A year later, she was elected president of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, which at the time was the largest political organization for black women in the United States.
21:11 Tracy V. Wilson? In 1927, Bethune met some people who would go on to have a huge impact on the next years of her life, and the same was true of her impact on them. They were Eleanor and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Franklin's mother, Sarah, was hosting a meeting for the leaders of prominent women's groups at her home. As the story goes, Bethune was the only black person there, and everybody was avoiding her, but Eleanor Roosevelt made a point of sitting next to her.
21:41 Holly Frey? Bethune and Roosevelt were close friends and colleagues for the rest of their lives, and their friendship was mutually beneficial for both of them. Bethune was a huge source of insight and knowledge for Roosevelt as she approached her own work on social and political issues, including women's rights. Bethune was already highly respected as an educator, and she had an influential leadership role in multiple national organizations focused on education and civil rights for Black people. But starting in 1933, her relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt also gave her direct, ongoing access to the President of the United States.
22:20 Tracy V. Wilson? Bethune had been involved with other presidential administrations before this, including attending presidential conferences on child welfare during the presidencies of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. She always stressed that she was an educator, not a politician. But she also deeply understood that no matter how hard Black educators, organizers, and activists worked, and how much they did for themselves, there needed to be robust government policies on issues like education, housing, voting rights, racial integration, and civil rights to make real change. Bethune's involvement with Roosevelt and his administration also led her to change her
23:02 Tracy V. Wilson? political party from Republican to Democrat, and she campaigned for his reelection in 1936.
23:09 Holly Frey? To circle back to the school, in 1929, Daytona Beach Literary and Industrial School merged with the Cookman Institute, originally the Cookman Institute for Boys of Jacksonville, Florida. The combined institute was initially called the Daytona-Cookman Collegiate Institute, and it was affiliated with the Methodist Church. Bethune hoped that this connection to the church would bring more consistent funding to the school. Although this did work to an extent, the school didn't get as much funding as she had hoped, and Bethune had to do extensive fundraising during the Great Depression to try to offset that shortfall. During the work and strain of all of this, at one point, she collapsed and had to spend
23:52 Holly Frey? several months in the hospital. The institute survived the Great Depression, though, and it was accredited by the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Southern States as a junior college in 1932. It began awarding its first baccalaureate degrees in 1943. Today, it's known as Bethune-Cookman University, and it has more than 3,000 students.
24:17 Tracy V. Wilson? In 1932, Frances Reynolds Kaiser died at the age of 67. Although she hadn't been able to do physical work during the last years of her life because of her health and her disabilities, she had continued to write and to advocate through writing. Bethune had helped to support her financially, and after her death, wrote a memorial in which she described Kaiser as "a rare gift of providence" and their personal and professional relationship as a "spiritual union and communion that can never be described."
24:49 Holly Frey? In 1935, Bethune became the founding president of the National Council of Negro Women, or NCNW, serving in that role until 1949. That same year, she was awarded the Spingarn Award, which is the NAACP's highest honor.
25:06 Tracy V. Wilson? From 1936 to 1942, Bethune partially stepped back from her role as president of Bethune-Cookman College so that she could spend more time in Washington, DC. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had named her Director of Negro Affairs at the National Youth Administration. The National Youth Administration was part of the New Deal, and it was set up as a department under the Works Progress Administration. The National Youth Administration provided education, training, and work-study programs for people between the ages of 16 and 25.
25:42 Holly Frey? Bethune recognized that Black people would be left out of New Deal programs unless Black communities advocated for their inclusion, and the government intentionally worked to do that. So she did extensive work to promote National Youth Administration programs and outreach specifically for Black youth, and to promote the involvement of young Black people in these government programs.
26:06 Tracy V. Wilson? She was so effective at doing this that the Roosevelt Administration established a whole new department, the Division of Negro Affairs, ultimately making Bethune its director in 1938. She remained in this role until 1944. During this time, she retired as president of Bethune-Cookman College, in part because she experienced a serious illness, but then she returned to that role in 1946.
26:34 Tracy V. Wilson? To add to all of her other leadership roles, she became vice president of the NAACP in 1940, and she held that position for the rest of her life. And she was also one of the educators who came together to establish the United Negro College Fund in 1944.
26:52 Holly Frey? During these years in Washington, Bethune was also part of an informal group of presidential advisers known as the Federal Council on Negro Affairs, more commonly known as the Black Cabinet or the Black Brain Trust. This started with a group of just a handful of people who met at Bethune's Washington, DC home to talk about how they could work together. And in her words, quote, "Give momentum to the great ball that is starting to roll for Negroes." This group grew, eventually involving more than 50 people who were working in various positions within the executive branch of the government and New Deal agencies. Bethune was particularly prominent and influential among this group, both because of her experience, knowledge, and ongoing advocacy,
27:37 Holly Frey? and also because her friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt gave her so much access to the president.
27:42 Tracy V. Wilson? In addition to working to make sure that Black people in communities had access to New Deal programs, this group advocated for the federal government to take a stand against lynching and to work to abolish discriminatory poll taxes and unpassable literacy tests that were preventing Black people from exercising their right to vote. They also advocated for anti-discrimination efforts within the federal government. This advocacy took place publicly and behind the scenes, and it also involved people outside of Washington, DC. For example, we've talked about the efforts of A. Philip Randolph and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in our prior episodes on each of them. On June 25, 1941,
28:27 Tracy V. Wilson? President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, prohibiting race-based discrimination in the defense industry and in the federal government. Afterward, Bethune wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt, thanking her for her support and encouraging the president to do this.
28:45 Holly Frey? Of course, this executive order was connected to World War II. And we're going to get into that after we pause for a sponsor break.
28:56 Tracy V. Wilson? Long hours, work deadlines, family commitments. You give so much to everyone else. Isn't it time to invest in yourself? The University of Arizona Global Campus is built for working adults with flexible online degree programs designed to fit your life. Your previous education, training, and eligible experience may even help you earn college credit. At UAGC, you can take one accelerated course at a time, helping you move toward your goals in five- and six-week class formats. Visit uagc.edu today.
29:26 Speaker 03 OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
29:56 Speaker 07 Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by breakout singer-songwriter Alex Warren. To this day, Ordinary would not have done anything, and I would have not been able to put it out if Book Talk didn't back it up and if my wife and her friend didn't back it up. Amazing. Pretty crazy how, like, just one thing. Right. I mean, I bet we could point to nine different things in our careers where it's just one thing, all of a sudden. If that one thing didn't happen, then I wouldn't be here. What you're talking about right now is what I've been talking about since the beginning of my career.
30:40 Speaker 07 There's these things outside of you that make everything happen. These other forces somehow came into contact with each other and helped propel you to this place. It's just insane. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello? Hey, it's me, your wallet. Oh, hey. I was just wondering if we could...
31:10 Speaker 03 Maybe take it easy this week? Absolutely. Really? Yep, I'm shopping at Food Lion. Wait, you mean low prices? And MVP savings. Oh, you do care. Obviously. Okay, I feel better. Good. Now, let's go get some snacks. At Food Lion, low prices and MVP savings make it easier to shop for what you need without spending more than you have to. When your wallet needs a little TLC, head to your local Food Lion or shop at foodlion.com.
31:41 Holly Frey? A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other? Tune
32:26 Holly Frey? in to find out. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
32:43 Tracy V. Wilson? Executive Order 8802 was issued before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and the US declaration of war against Japan. But war-related industries had already been scaling up, both because the United States was offering support to the allied nations and because of the possibility that the US would become directly involved in the Second World War. This had created a ton of new jobs, and Executive Order 8802 was meant to help make sure that those jobs would be open to black workers and that black people would also be able to work in them without facing racism or harassment on the job.
33:25 Tracy V. Wilson? There was also ongoing advocacy for the military to be racially integrated, but that integration did not happen until after the war.
33:34 Holly Frey? Once the US became directly involved in World War II, Bethune also advocated for Black people to serve in the armed forces. In her words, "This is America's war, and we too are Americans." In 1942, Bethune was part of the board that established the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, later the Women's Army Corps, and she worked to ensure that there would also be units established for Black women. One of these units was the 688 Central Postal Directory Battalion. Our episode on them ran as a Saturday classic on March 26, 2022, and the movie on them is, of course, what inspired this episode. Bethune advocated for Black women to be included in the Navy's Women Accepted
34:17 Holly Frey? for Volunteer Emergency Services, or WAVES, as well. She was also named an honorary general in the Women's Army for National Defense. That was a volunteer organization for Black women in support of the war effort.
34:31 Tracy V. Wilson? In addition to her focus on Black women, Bethune also advocated for traditionally Black colleges and universities to be included in the Civilian Pilot Training Program, which brought new opportunities to train as pilots. One of the most famous units to come from this program was the Tuskegee Airmen. Although there were Black women who trained as pilots through these programs, the Women Air Force Service Pilots, who we have also covered on the show, did not include Black women.
35:01 Holly Frey? In the last months of World War II, a conference was held in San Francisco, California, to draft the charter for an international organization that would work to help preserve peace around the world. The result was the United Nations, which was formally established on October 24, 1945. Bethune was one of the delegates to this conference, appointed by President Harry S. Truman. She advocated for the UN Charter to include a focus on equal rights, regardless of race, sex, and religion. She later wrote an open letter about this work, in which she said, "Through this conference, the Negro becomes closely allied with the darker races of the world. But more importantly, he becomes integrated into the structure
35:45 Holly Frey? of the peace and freedom of all people everywhere."
35:50 Tracy V. Wilson? That same year, Bethune started working with real estate developers to form Bethune Volusia Beach Corporation. Its purpose was to buy oceanfront property in Daytona Beach to establish a beach that was not only accessible to Black people but was also Black-owned. A few years later, Bethune also pooled funds with three other investors to start a hotel there that would welcome Black visitors.
36:16 Holly Frey? In October of 2022, we did an episode on Paul Robeson and the Peace Guild Riots, and we talked about how he faced widespread condemnation after a performance and speech at the Paris Peace Congress in 1949. English-language news reports, one of them filed before he had even started to speak, didn't match up to a French transcript of his extemporaneous remarks and claimed that he had compared the US government to Hitler and Goebbels. Prominent Black figures were called on to denounce Robeson in his remarks, including Bethune, who said, "Mr. Robeson does not speak for Negroes who have always remained loyal to American ideals, even when there are weak points in those ideals."
37:02 Tracy V. Wilson? Bethune traveled in the United States and internationally at various points in her life, but two notable trips took place after World War II. One was to Haiti in 1949, where she was invited to receive the Medal of Honor and Merit, which was Haiti's highest civilian honor. Then in 1952, at the age of 76, she finally fulfilled her dream of going to Africa as part of a delegation to Liberia from President Harry Truman. While there, she was also awarded Liberia's highest medal, which was the Order of the Star of Africa.
37:39 Holly Frey? Mary McLeod Bethune retired as president of Bethune Workman College in 1948, and as president of the National Council of Negro Women, or NCNW, in 1949. She had been writing extensively for newspapers, journals, and magazines, and she continued to do this after her retirement from other, more active roles. This included writing a regular column for the Chicago Defender.
38:05 Tracy V. Wilson? In 1953, she established the Mary McLeod Bethune Foundation on the Bethune-Cookman campus to house her papers and to continue her work and legacy. She also gave her on-campus home, which she called "The Refuge to the Foundation."
38:22 Holly Frey? Mary McLeod Bethune died of a heart attack at home on May 18, 1955, at the age of 79. She was buried on the campus of Bethune-Cookman University. Two days later, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote about her in her "My Day" column. Roosevelt described Bethune as having "a deep religious faith that was both a weapon and a shield," and as thinking that God would hear her prayers if the things she was asking for were good. In Roosevelt's words, "She helped herself and the Lord helped her." This mirrored something that Bethune had liked to say about herself, which is that, "I have faith in God and Mary Bethune."
39:01 Tracy V. Wilson? Before her death, Bethune had written what she called her "Last Will and Testament." This is not a legal document, but a reflection on her work and what she felt she was leaving to the world. This was published in Ebony Magazine in August of 1955 and has been widely reprinted since then. She wrote about realizing that death would overtake her before the greatest of her dreams could be realized, that being, in her words, "full equality for the Negro in our time." Her "Last Will and Testament" described her thoughts on leaving a legacy involving things like love, hope, racial dignity, and a desire to live
39:44 Tracy V. Wilson? harmoniously with your fellow man. It's a really beautiful essay, and you can find it online at the Bethune-Cookman University website and in many other places.
39:54 Holly Frey? During her lifetime, Mary McLeod Bethune was awarded 11 honorary degrees, including nine honorary doctorates. She had become known across the US as the First Lady of the Struggle, or the First Lady of Negro America. In 1973, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. A year later- A statue of her was unveiled at Lincoln Park, Washington DC, commissioned using funds raised by the NCNW. It depicts her with two children. She's holding her cane in one hand. She had a whole collection of them because she thought they conferred dignity. Or, as she phrased it, it gave her swank. This was the first memorial to a black person in a public park in Washington DC.
40:40 Tracy V. Wilson? Bethune was also on a postage stamp in 1985, making her the second black woman to be depicted on a US postage stamp. Her townhouse in Washington DC that had served as the headquarters for the NCNW became Mary McLeod Bethune Council House, part of the National Park System in 1995. The Council House is also home to the National Archives for Black Women's History, and the NCNW still exists today. Her former home on the Bethune-Cookman University campus is also now the Mary McLeod Bethune Foundation National Historic Landmark.
41:19 Holly Frey? On January 13th, 2022, a statue of her was placed in the National Statuary Hall in Washington DC, replacing a statue of Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith as one of the two statues from the state of Florida. She is sculpted in white, wearing academic garb with a mortarboard with a cane in one hand and a black rose in the other. She had started referring to her students as "black roses" after seeing some growing in a Swiss garden. This sculpture was made by Nilda Comas, the first person of Puerto Rican descent to sculpt a statue for the National Statuary Hall Collection.
41:57 Tracy V. Wilson? Both the monument in Lincoln Park and the statue in the National Statuary Hall Collection reference Bethune's last will and testament. The Lincoln Park Memorial has a bronze band that runs around the base, reading, quote, "I leave you love. I leave you hope. I leave you the challenge of developing confidence in one another. I leave you a thirst for education. I leave you a respect for the use of power. I leave you also a desire to live harmoniously with your fellow man. I leave you faith. I leave you racial dignity. I leave you finally a responsibility to our young people." And then the statue in the National Statuary Hall has a stack of books at her
42:38 Tracy V. Wilson? feet, and the one on top with the visible cover says, "I Leave You" on the cover. And then the spines reference the things that she left.
42:48 Tracy V. Wilson? That's Mary McLeod Bethune.
42:50 Holly Frey? She's amazing.
42:51 Tracy V. Wilson? She's really, truly amazing. I also have some listener mail from Kyle. Kyle wrote, "Hi Holly and Tracy, you two do such a fantastic job. I've never felt the need to write in. I was listening to the first part of Ely S. Parker, and as you were talking about him living along the Grand River and working with the Army, I was driving over the Grand River in Kitchener, Ontario. It felt like a sign that I should email my two favorite history teachers and let them know how much I appreciate the content and lessons you put out each week. I also wanted to mention briefly the history of Kitchener, which you both might find interesting. Prior to World War I, it had a very large German population and was named Berlin.
43:36 Tracy V. Wilson? Obviously, this wasn't a good look for the town and had had an amusing naming vote. During this period, there was also an Army recruiting officer that formed a gang of youths to intimidate enlistments and a stolen bust of Kaiser Wilhelm. I doubt any of this would make a good episode, but I think it has the charm to make a segment on a Six Impossible Stories episode. Thanks so much for all the content and making my drive more enjoyable. Here is your pet tax. Odin, all gray, no teeth, one eye. Odin is a great name for a one-eyed animal. Jellybean, white and gray, ham, all black, bagel, obnoxiously cute little kitten, all the best, Kyle."
44:18 Tracy V. Wilson? So, yes, we have four very adorable pictures of very adorable animals.
44:24 Holly Frey? Babies.
44:27 Tracy V. Wilson? I looked a little bit into this whole renaming of Berlin into Kitchener story, and it does seem like it was a wild ride.
44:42 Tracy V. Wilson? So I don't know, maybe it will be a six impossible episodes one day, maybe not. Who can say? But I did amuse myself reading about it this morning. It is hard to say which of these cats I think is the cutest cat.
44:57 Holly Frey? I mean, there's something about a one eyed.
45:00 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
45:01 Holly Frey? You know, just a cat that's got a little bit of a scruffy look is great.
45:04 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah. Well, and then since Odin is all gray, no teeth, one eye, I also have a fondness. My cats do have some teeth. They both have fewer teeth.
45:15 Holly Frey? Right.
45:16 Tracy V. Wilson? And they started with, because they are both apparently genetically prone to some dental problems, regardless of how much work we put into.
45:26 Holly Frey? Yeah. We had two littermates. We still have Ozil. His littermate clearly had a different dad than him because he got the genetic bad teeth situation and Ozil has never had a tooth issue.
45:41 Tracy V. Wilson? And I'm like.
45:45 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah. So thank you again so much for this email, Kyle. If you'd like to send us a note about this or any other podcasts, we're at [email protected] . You can subscribe to the show also on the iHeartRadio app or wherever else you like to get your podcasts.
46:08 Tracy V. Wilson? Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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