DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The City of Daytona Beach held a celebration Monday for the 148th birthday of Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune along the Riverfront Esplanade in Downtown Daytona.
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Bethune-Cookman University Founder Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune is regarded as one of America’s most influential civil rights pioneers.
She was born Mary Jane McLeod on July 10, 1875 near Mayesville, South Carolina to parents who were former slaves.
Bethune first launched an all girls school on Oak Street named Daytona Literary and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls.
As the school grew, she bought land at the old dump for $1.50 and moved the school to where it sits today.
Read: How Mary McLeod Bethune created Bethune-Cookman University with $1.50 in her pocket
Lucas-Youmans said Bethune developed relationships with people like John Rockefeller, James Gamble and Thomas White to help finance the school and her vision.
The college merged with the Cookman Institute in 1923 and became a university in 2007.
In 2022, an 11-foot marble statue of educator, activist and entrepreneur Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune was unveiled at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday morning.
This is the first statue of an African American representing a state in National Statuary Hall.
The 3-ton statue was sculpted by Florida artist Nilda Comas, the first Hispanic master sculptor chosen for the National Statuary Hall Collection.
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Comas sculpted the statue in Pietrasanta, Italy, using a 11.5-ton block of statuario marble excavated from Michelangelo’s cave in Tuscany.
The statue was previously on display in Daytona Beach, where Bethune lived. It replaced that of Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, who was born in Florida.
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