"What does the Negro want?  His answer is very simple.  He wants only what all other Americans want.  He wants opportunity to make real what the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights say, what the Four Freedoms establish."

      Mary McLeod Bethune was the youngest  of 17 children.  Mary was the daughter of former slaves.  When she was a child, she went to a local free school in Maysville, South Carolina, where she was born on July 10, 1875.  She worked hard and won a scholarship to continue her education.  She eventually graduated Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois, in 1895.  She founded the Bethune-Cookman College in Dayton, Florida, because education was so important to her.  She also founded the National Council for  Negro Women.  Mary McLeod Bethune helped many African-American students to continue their education to live a better life.

To find out some more out about Mary McLeod Bethune, try out these great websites!!