黑人妇女 原文

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In many ways, Mary Jane McLeod Bethune's life was representative of the lives of many African American women of her time: she was deeply grounded in religion and family, and intensely committed to racial advancement. Yet, Bethune became one of the most important African American women in American political history. She came to occupy a prominent place among a select group of black men and women designated as “race leaders”—men and women who devoted their lives to advancing African American equality. They became the public voice of the voiceless masses, speaking of the collective identity of people of color and arguing for equal social, economic, and political rights. Bethune was certainly a pivotal member of this group as her efforts advanced equal opportunity for black Americans on all levels for nearly half a century. Yet, Bethune distinguished herself from other race leaders by steadfastly incorporating the struggle for gender equality within her efforts for black equality. By advocating and training black women for visible and increasing public leadership roles, she ensured an expanding role for African American women in the formal political realm. She believed this would automatically lead to advancement for the entire race, as black women then were more inclined than black men to use public positions for group advancement. Bethune's exposure to strong, independent female role models allowed her to develop her unwavering belief in the primary responsibility of black women for sustaining the race. Her grandmother, mother, and female teachers demonstrated how black women who embraced “a larger appreciation for good citizenship, cleanliness, beauty, thoughtfulness” could lead African Americans as “the mothers of the race, the homemakers and spiritual guides.” Bethune believed African American women had an obligation to understand these responsibilities and use their status to fight for equality. She publicly endorsed the notion of women's higher moral capacity, recognized the important contribution women could make to racial uplift, and continually worked to expand women's roles toward that end. Bethune was a truly multifaceted and multidimensional race woman. She fought on a variety of levels and used multiple outlets—education, government, and women's associations—in her quest for a more just society. Some black women leaders before her gained more recognition than she achieved in her lifetime, but none before her, and few afterwards, were more effective in developing women's leadership for the cause of racial justice.

Despite her multiple political activities, Bethune has not been recognized as a black political leader. This is attributable in large part to the traditional definition of political activity used by many historians and political scientists: political activity encompasses the actions of individually elected officials and the workings of government. It also rests upon a conventionally accepted and gender-biased idea of a leader as a “spokesman, ” and of politics as voting, electioneering, and office holding. This traditional research defines women's political participation as atypical, seeing women as inadequately socialized into the political process. It ties women's political activism to their social roles as wives and mothers. Women such as Bethune who entered the public arena and fought for substantive reform while remaining grounded in networks of kin, church, and community were left out of political history. As feminist historians have become more interested in political history, they have worked to redefine politics as any “activity [that] includes all community work which is oriented to change through multifaceted goals including service, support, public education and advocacy. Political orientation [is adapted] to changing the public agenda through planned and implemented actions.” Empowerment is an important part of women's politicization and begins when women “change their ideas about the causes of their powerlessness, when they recognize the systematic forces that oppress them, and when they act to change the conditions of their lives. Using this definition, black women who worked through voluntary associations and community organizations became political leaders because they brought particular issues to the attention of politicians and the public. They fought for equal opportunity for African American men and women at a time when America had neither the will nor the desire to make a commitment to racial or sexual equality. Bethune is one such woman who deserves recognition as a political leader based upon the depth and breadth of her political activities.

However, even the few historians who have given passing attention to Bethune's political accomplishments have misinterpreted the means, techniques, and actions she employed in pursuing equality. When examined individually, the choices she made throughout her lifetime often appear contradictory, unless we understand that Bethune had one foot in the nineteenth century and one in the twentieth. She was a transitional figure. Initially grounded in the nineteenth-century belief that advancement would come through changing individual behavior, Bethune in the twentieth century quickly recognized that inequality was deeply rooted in American institutions. She began to see that the focal point for African Americans should no longer be on changing individual attitudes and behaviors, but rather on changing social, economic, and political institutions that shaped collective opinions. She worked diligently to transform local community groups into political power bases and promoted the formation of a national coalition that would work to alter social, economic, and political institutions. In these efforts, she used two conceptually distinct levels of activism. In some instances, Bethune based her activism on informal political activities that were distinctly nonconfrontational and designed to quietly undermine racial and gender stereotypes. Yet, when dealing with egregious incidents involving institutional inequality, Bethune often engaged in overtly formal political action that publicly challenged the basic principles of the American democratic system. She astutely gauged her activism to fit the particular circumstances. And no matter which course Bethune decided to pursue, she sought a peaceful, yet political, means to achieve social, economic, and political justice.

Mary Jane McLeod Bethune was born on July 10, 1875, in Mayesville, South Carolina, the fifteenth of seventeen children born to Samuel and Patsy McLeod. She was educated at the local missionary school, then received scholarships from a Quaker dressmaker that enabled her to attend Scotia Seminary and Moody Bible Institute. Between 1895 and 1903, she taught at a number of small missionary schools throughout the South, including Haine's Institute in Augusta, Georgia. In 1898, she met and married Albertus Bethune and in 1899 gave birth to her only child, Albert McLeod Bethune. In 1904, she traveled to Daytona Beach, Florida, where she established the Daytona Educational and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls capitalized with her personal savings of $1.50. By 1912, the school offered a liberal arts high school curriculum and employed nine full-time teachers. In 1923, Daytona Institute merged with Cookman Institute, becoming the coeducational Bethune-Cookman College. Bethune-Cookman became the first fully accredited four-year college for blacks in Florida. Bethune served as its president until 1942.

In addition to establishing and operating Daytona Institute, Bethune served in a variety of roles in a diverse array of commissions and organizations. She was recognized as an expert on black education and was an active member of the National Commission for Child Welfare under Presidents Coolidge and Hoover. She was also president of state, regional, and national women's clubs including the Florida State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, the Southeastern Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, and the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACW). In 1927, she met Eleanor Roosevelt through her position as president of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs and by 1935 their growing friendship led to her appointment as director of the Office of Minority Affairs in the National Youth Administration, the first federal office created for a black woman. In the same year, Bethune organized the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), an umbrella organization designed to give black women political visibility and access to political power on the national level. Bethune continued to serve African Americans through a federal appointment in 1942 as special assistant to the Secretary of War for Selection of Candidates for the first Officers Candidate School for WACS. In 1945, President Harry Truman named Bethune to his Civil Rights Commission and as the only African American woman consultant to the San Francisco Conference to draw up the charter for the United Nations.

During her lifetime, Bethune received numerous awards, eight honorary degrees, and held affiliations with at least seventy-five organizations, including the General Conference of the Methodist Church, the Women's Army for National Defense, National Commission on Christian Education, American Women's Volunteer Service, Southern Conference Education Fund, American Mother's Committee, Council of Church Women, Social Service Commission of the Methodist Church, Americans for Democratic Action, National Civil Liberties Union, First Daytona Beach Housing Authority, American Council on African Education, Inc., National Committee on Atomic Information, Good Neighbor Association, Daytona Beach, Florida, the International Longfellow Society, National Council of Women of the United States, vice president of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, a director of the Afro-American Life Insurance Company, and the vice president of the Central Life Insurance Company. She founded the Mary McLeod Bethune Foundation, and Bethune Beach, Inc. Bethune received honorary degrees from Wilberforce University, South Carolina State College, Lincoln University, Tuskegee University, Howard University, Bennett College, West Virginia State College, and Rollins College. She was rewarded for her service to the race and her commitment to American democracy by receiving the Spingarn Medal, the Thomas Jefferson Award, the First Annual Youth City Award, the Haitian Medal of Honor, and the Star of Africa. In addition to her service work, Bethune made many literary contributions, including one chapter in What the Negro Wants, one chapter in Spiritual Autobiography,a weekly column in the Chicago Defender and the Pittsburgh Courier, and numerous articles in magazines and periodicals including editorials for Afraamerican Woman and Women United, the official publications of the National Council of Negro Women. Journalist Ida Tarbell named her among the fifty women regarded as having done the most for the welfare of the United States. Bethune died on May 18, 1955.

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