Black History Moment: Mary McLeod Bethune

Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955) was an educator and mentor to a whole generation of leaders and was the first Black woman to receive a major federal appointment.  Bethune was active in women's clubs, and her leadership in them allowed her to become nationally prominent. She worked for the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, and became a member of Roosevelt's Black Cabinet, sharing the concerns of black people with the Roosevelt administration while spreading Roosevelt's message to blacks, who had been traditionally Republican voters.She started a black university in Daytona Beach, Florida which later became Bethune-Cookman University.