Mary McLeod Bethune was an American activist, humanitarian, and above all an educator. Born on July 10, 1875 in South Carolina, Mary was the fifteenth of seventeen children. Her parents, Samuel and Patsy McLeod, were formerly enslaved, and most of her siblings had been born into slavery. As a child, she worked hard with her parents and siblings on their own farm. Her passion for education started at a young age when the granddaughter of her mother’s former owner snatched a book away from Mary, shaming her for not being able to read.
Certainly, practicing the morality of remembrance, we cannot pass the month of July without paying rightful homage to our foremother, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, born July 10, 1875, laying down in peace and rising up in radiance May 18, 1955.