Mary McLeod Bethune: Building a Better World Essays and Selected Documents

by Audrey Thomas McCluskey (Editor), Elaine M. Smith (Editor)

"From this documentary portrait, a talented and multifaceted contributor to the black experience in the 20th century United States emerges. Much is owed to Bethune, and readers gain an appreciation of that debt." ―Choice

This volume explores the multi-faceted career of Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955) in her roles as stateswoman, politician, educational leader, and social visionary. It offers a unique combination of original documentary sources and analysis of Bethune's life and work. The more than 70 documents, spanning 53 years of Bethune's public life, include letters, memoranda, position papers, newspaper columns, interviews, and speeches. Essays by the editors relate these documents to the phases of Bethune's career.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

336 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1999

Reviews

[Royal Jewel · Rating 5 out of 5]

She was an amazing woman!

[Jeremy Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the pantheon of Black American History, the most resonant names—Malcom, Martin, Frederick, Marcus, Booker—seem to get recirculated, over and over, to the detriment of equally if not more powerful voices from the same period, with one of the least remembered figures being Mary McLeod Bethune. This book is not a riveting narrative, nor should it be, as a matter of archives and records and documents, but Bethune’s life, her vast accomplishments, and her valuable insights are catalogued here in a work that illuminates her brilliance. The only reason I can find for the nation lacking much knowledge of Bethune’s existence, today, is that she was living and speaking and leading proudly during a time when women were not regarded well for doing so. In the aftermath of her death in 1955, I gather that a rippling misogyny allowed her once-prominent, once-undeniable existence to become a barely recognizable footnote in our male-obsessed past. But it’s a shame we don’t see her in the same light, the same vein, the same authoritative platform as we put the most public men of her generation.