Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955)Mary McLeod Bethune believed that the route out of poverty for African Americans was education. In 1904, with her funds totaling $1.50, she acted on that conviction to establish a normal-industrial girls' school in Daytona Beach, Florida. Within a decade, the school was thriving and on its way to becoming Bethune-Cookman College.
In the 1930s, Bethune served as adviser to the New Deal's National Youth Administration and was a member of the unofficial "black cabinet" that sought to move the government toward curbing racial discrimination. In these capacities, she contributed to implementing some of the first meaningful measures toward requiring equal opportunity for black job-seekers in federal employment and the nation's defense industries.
Hanging in the background of Bethune's portrait is a picture of Faith Hall, the first major building erected at Bethune-Cookman. At the time the likeness was done, Bethune had no physical need for the cane that she holds. Instead, she regarded it as stage prop that, as she put it, gave her "swank."
Betsy Graves Reyneau (1888-1964)
Oil on canvas, 1943-1944
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Harmon Foundation
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