Mary Jane McLeod Bethune, born on a rice and cotton farm near Mayesville, S.C., on July 10, 1875, was the 15th of 17 children born to slave parents. Throughout her youth, she had a strong desire to learn, but there was no school in Mayesville until she was 11 years old, when one opened up about five miles from her home.
When she graduated high school, she was awarded a small scholarship that paid for her to attend Scotia Seminary in Concord, N.C., from which she graduated in 1893.
With almost no money, but a desire to educate herself and others, Bethune founded a small school for girls in Florida in 1904, which at first was attended by her 4-year-old son and five girls, who each paid 50 cents per week to attend. The school grew in enrollment and in faculty, and became known as Bethune-Cookman College, the first four-year accredited college founded by a black American woman.
Afterward, Bethune became involved in government affairs, and in 1930 was appointed to the White House Conference on Child Health by President Herbert Hoover. President Franklin D. Roosevelt later appointed her as director of Negro Affairs in the National Youth Administration and as his special adviser on minority affairs.
Bethune died in May 1955 at age 79.

— Jessica Richelderfer