She was born Mary McLeod in Mayesville, S.C., on July 10, 1875. She graduated from Moody Bible Institute in 1895 and married Albertus Bethune in 1897, teaching in Southern schools until 1904 when she opened an institute for girls. She served as president of the college until 1942. In 1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt named her director of the National Youth Administration's Division of Negro Affairs. During World War II she assisted the secretary of war in selecting officer candidates for the Women's Army Corps, and in the early 1940's she was vice-president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She died at Daytona Beach, Fla., on May 18, 1955.
Education
McLeod attended Mayesville's one-room black schoolhouse, Trinity Mission School, which was run by the Presbyterian Board of Missions of Freedmen. She was the only child in her family to attend school, so each day, she taught her family what she had learned. To get to and from school, Mary walked eight miles each day. Her teacher Emma Jane Wilson became a significant mentor in her life. Wilson had attended Scotia Seminary (now Barber-Scotia College). She helped McLeod attend the same school on a scholarship, which she did from 1888-1893. The following year, she attended Dwight L. Moody's Institute for Home and Foreign Missions in Chicago (now the Moody Bible Institute), hoping to become a missionary in Africa. Told that black missionaries were not needed, she planned to teach.
Graduated from Moody Bible Institute in 1895.
Career
She was teaching in Southern schools until 1904 when she opened an institute for girls.
Achievements
Connections
She was married to Albertus Bethune, who died 1918.