DAYTONA BEACH — Born of humble beginnings as the first free child to slaves, Mary McLeod Bethune would go on to found a university, serve as an advisor to four U.S. presidents and have a U.S. postage stamp created in her honor.
Now, nearly 63 years after her death, Bethune will once again grace the halls of Washington, D.C. — both in spirit and in likeness as a statue.
In a rare show of bipartisanship, the Florida Legislature in this year's session offered nearly unanimous support to replace a statue of Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith in the U.S. Capitol with a likeness of Bethune. Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed the bill into law March 19, making Bethune the first African American honored by a state in the National Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C.
The effort to pay for the estimated $400,000 statue began Friday at Bethune-Cookman University during the college's National Statuary Hall Campaign Kickoff. However, for the students, staff and dignitaries attending the event on Bethune’s namesake campus, it was more about what she represents than the statue itself.
“Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, her accomplishments and contributions to the state and to the nation makes her the perfect person to receive this honor,” said State Sen. Perry E. Thurston, who sponsored the senate bill. “Having her be the first African American is a great tribute as well. But it’s also a tribute to Florida, because putting her in the hall is a powerful signal to the world that Floridians recognize our state’s rich history as well as our present day diversity.”
Daytona Beach Mayor Derrick Henry echoed Thurston's remarks. “Only in America could a person with such meager resources make such transformational change in a community and throughout a nation,” he said.
“Mary McLeod Bethune is one of our greatest examples of what American exceptionalism really means. American exceptionalism isn’t about wealth, it isn’t even about talent, it certainly isn’t about riches; it’s about those core values; those values that can’t be taught but that are innate; values that she personified; the values of courage, tenacity, self-confidence and most importantly, the value of thinking of others.”
State Rep. Patrick Henry, himself an '80s B-CU alum, was one of the bill’s most ardent supporters and called its passage one of the highlights of his life. He said Bethune was a “giant, trailblazer and ahead of her time” before considering the weight of her contributions.
“No, she was not ahead of her time,” Henry said. “She was right on time because a whole race of people were depending on her during a time when we didn’t have voice, definitely not a voice in Washington, D.C. And was she a voice.”
The effort to replace the statue of Smith grew in the wake of the Charlottesville, Virginia riot that took place in August 2017, Henry said.
“The mindset of America started to change and we said, ‘This is not who we are. We’re better than this,’” he said.
Henry noted how early on in the legislative process, a bill detractor and conservative legislator dissented, but after learning of Bethune’s deeds, changed his mind saying, “Good God, people, Mary McLeod Bethune is the closest thing we have to Mother Teresa. How can we not put her in statuary hall?”
State Rep. Tom Leek co-sponsored the statue bill in the State House with Patrick Henry.
Bethune was chosen over Marjory Stoneman Douglas and George W. Jenkins, the founder of Publix, as potential statue candidates, leaving the daughter of slaves to replace a Confederate general.
“This will show some of the other states that Florida is taking the lead to make amends and heal and foster race relations,” Henry said. “We’re the first state in the union to have an African American represent us in Statuary Hall and we couldn’t have picked a better person.”
In 1904, Bethune opened the Daytona Educational & Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in Daytona Beach. She bought the land, a former garbage dump, for $1.50. However, that was only the beginning of journey.
“I think her accomplishments have withstood the tests of time,” Thurston said. “Certainly if you think about it, here’s someone who has advised presidents before the Civil Rights movement, so certainly she’s one to be honored and if anybody was going to be recognized from the state of Florida having done so much with so little, I think we’ve got the correct person here in that of Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune.”
B-CU Board of Trustees Lucille O’Neal and Nancy Lohman spearheaded the fundraising effort.
While the statuary hall website says “each statue is the gift of a state, not of an individual or group of citizens,” during the bill process it was agreed that the respective entity tied to the nomination would pay for the statue, Thurston said, adding that he was going to work with the state to try and secure additional funding.
But he might not need to.
B-CU already is more than halfway toward its goal, a quarter of it from Lohman and her husband who donated $100,000 toward the effort. Lohman said that the amount of participation in the effort was more important than the amount of money donated.
That “participation” she referred to emanated from the university’s student body. In a symbolic gesture of the school’s founding, B-CU’s student's donated $6,000 — which broke down to roughly $1.50 for each student.
“Dr. Bethune’s belief in you is why we are all here today, and for that I am grateful," said Student Government Association President Keshon Kindred.
By the end of Friday's ceremony, $213,000 had been donated. The B-CU National Alumni Association also has pledged $200,000 to the cause, Lohman said.
B-CU’s statuary campaign committee will work to secure addition donations — though Lohman said she didn’t think they would have to do any “heavy lifting.”
Any additional money raised beyond the cost of the statue will be used for an on-campus event the day of the unveiling. Beyond that, extra money will go to the Mary McLeod Bethune Scholarship Program, Lohman said.
Lohman said a Florida Council on Arts and Culture committee would handle the next steps in the process, such as statue creation, shipping, and the unveiling ceremony. The entity did not respond to requests for information by press time.
Ft. Lauderdale-based master sculptor Nilda Comas was chosen by the Council’s committee to sculpt the statue. Typically, it takes about 18 months once fundraising is underway to raise the money and complete the statue, Lohman said.
For B-CU students, Bethune's recognition was long overdue.
“It’s definitely about time,” 23-year-old B-CU liberal studies major Keyosha Green said. “She deserves it.”
Though it took more than half a century for Bethune to return to Washington, D.C., for those with ties to the university, Bethune never really left.
B-CU Interim President Hubert Grimes said she was a woman “who’s impacted not this university, not just this local community, but this entire nation, and yes, even beyond the borders thereof.”