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Mary McLeod Bethune Mary McLeod Bethune was born, on July 10, 1875, in Mayesville, South Carolina. She was the fifteenth out of seventeen children, but the most successful. Her parents were slaves and they considered education to be very important. She entered the local Presbyterian Mission School for Negroes. With the help of scholarships, part-time jobs, and familial sacrifice she was able to attend, from 1888 to 1894, Scotia Seminary (now Barber-Scotia College) in Concord, North Carolina. Aspiring to …

…discrimination in the Armed Forces, Defense Plants, Government Housing Plants, and finally that Negro History can be taught in the Public Schools of the country. Mary McLeod Bethune died on, May 18,1955, in Daytona Beach, Florida. She is a pivotal figure in twentieth-century black women's history. Her life and work formed a major link connecting the social reform efforts of post-Reconstruction black women to the political protest activities of the generation emerging after World War II.