Statue of Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune to be formally unveiled today at the U.S. Capitol

The Hump Day Hot Topic!

At last, the statue of the great Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune will be unveiled to represent the State of Florida at Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol Complex later this morning in Washington, D.C.!

Dr. Bethune's likeness (below) replaces that of Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, one of the last Rebel generals to surrender in June of 1865 and whose statue has represented Florida in Statuary Hall since 1922.

Born to formerly enslaved parents in 1875, Dr. Bethune spent her formative years picking cotton on a sharecrop farm in South Carolina before graduating from Scotia Seminary (later Barber-Scotia College, a North Carolina based HBCU).

Upon graduation, the young teacher married fellow educator Albertus Bethune, and the couple moved to Palatka, Florida. There, the 29-year-old Bethune sold insurance until 1904, when she established the Daytona Literary and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls with, as she would often state, “$1.50, faith in God, and five little girls: Lena, Lucille, and Ruth Warren, Anna Geiger and Celest Jackson." 

In 1923, her school merged with the Cookman Institute of Jacksonville, which had been founded in 1872. The new co-ed college, affiliated with the United Methodist Church, was renamed the Daytona-Cookman Institute in 1931 and, after receiving full accreditation, changed to Bethune-Cookman College in April of that year. 

Over the next two decades (until her death in 1955), Dr. Bethune became arguably the most influential Black leader in America as she founded the National Council for Negro Women in 1935; served as a highly influential adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor, throughout the former's 12 years in office; earned the Spingarn Medal—the highest honor granted by the NAACP—in 1935 and, during the prelude to World War II, led the charge to commission Black women as officers in the U.S. Army!

Dr. Bethune standing tall among other dignataries during an Oval Office meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt circa 1941.

In 1945, Dr. Bethune earned the distinction of becoming the only woman of color tapped by then President Harry Truman to attend the founding conference of what would become the United Nations.

Vintage photo of Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune (front-right), Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Nannie Helen Burroughs, and other leaders at a Baptist Women's gathering in Chicago, Illinois circa 1927-31.

Dr. Bethune's greatest legacy, however, remains in the college that she helped found, one whose motto, "Enter to Learn, Depart to Serve," has guided thousands of her graduates who have achieved greatly in their fields of professional endeavor, including Civil Rights leaders A. Phillip Randolph, Harry T. and Harriet Moore, Basketball Hall of Fame Coach John Chaney, NFL Hall of Fame lineman Larry Little, and legendary college football coach Jack “Cy” Mclairen. 

To watch Dr. Bethune's statue unveiling today at 11:00 a.m. EDT, be sure to click on the following link: www.speaker.gov/live.