The Fierce Activism of Mrs. Mary McLeod Bethune

This in-development multimodal monograph examines the international, national, and local activism of world-renowned educator, presidential advisor, and women’s rights advocate Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955), whose powerful voice is literally amplified through the inclusion of audio and video recordings of her speeches as well as her columns for the Chicago Defender and Pittsburgh Courier, two of the leading African American newspapers in the early twentieth century. The book’s interactive format will offer readers a deeper understanding of one of the most influential Black women of her time, with chapters on her 1904 founding of the Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls (later Bethune-Cookman College), her service as president of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, her work with Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, her international travels, her 1935 founding of the National Council of Negro Women, her tenure as vice president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons (NAACP), and her World War II involvement.