Browse Items (2 total)
Sort by:
-
Tapestry of slaves and freemen
The newspaper article "Tapestry of slaves and freemen" describes Arnold Brown's investigation of his ancestry and the discoveries he made about his ancestors and the African-American history of Bergen county. -
Bethune, Mary Jane Mcleod (1875-1955)
Mary Jane Mcleod Bethune was an influential African American educator, civil rights activist, and women's rights activist.
Bethune was born July 10, 1875 in South Carolina. She was the daughter of Samuel and Patsy Mcleod who were previously enslaved.
She married Albertus Bethune in 1899. She also had a son. Her marriage with Albertus ended in 1904. That same year she opened the Daytona Beach Literary and Industrial School for Training Negro Girls. The school evolved into a college, merging with the Cookman Institute forming the Bethune-Cookman College in 1929.
Bethune was heavily involved in activism, including the Women's Suffrage Movement. She was elected the president of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs in 1924 and she was the founding president of the National Council of Negro Women in 1935.
Bethune was friends with Eleanor Roosevelt and was the highest-ranking African-American woman in the United States government when Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her director of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration in 1936. A position she remained in until 1944.
In 1940 she became the vice-president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She was also the only black woman at the founding conference of the United Nations in 1945.