A PASSIONATE MIND IN RELENTLESS PURSUIT

A personal consideration of a pioneering civil rights leader’s ongoing significance.

Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955) fought for “full equality for the Negro in our time,” during the grim period between the end of Reconstruction and the post–World War II Civil Rights Movement. She founded schools, with an emphasis on educating Black girls, and she raised money to pay poll taxes and offered instruction on how to pass literacy tests for Black Americans trying to vote in the Jim Crow South. She served in the leadership of numerous civil rights and mutual aid organizations, from the NAACP to the National Council of Negro Women, and she advocated for the Black community as an adviser to three presidents. Although historian Rooks sketches Bethune’s achievements and traces the evolution of her thinking over the decades—from an emphasis on self-help to a focus on systemic change—this is not a full-scale biography. Instead, chapters on individual aspects of Bethune’s long, multifaceted career include the author’s reminiscences about her childhood sojourns with her grandparents in a Black Florida community called the Heights, the education at a Bethune school that enabled her grandmother to become a teacher, and other personal matters. Rooks believes today’s activists can draw several crucial lessons from Bethune’s example: the importance of publicly commemorating Black achievements as integral parts of American history; the key role played in the struggle for equality by Black women and the need to support them; Black capitalism as a vital element of collective empowerment; and the fundamental connection between Black liberation and the international battle against colonialism and imperialism. The author’s impassioned text pays tribute to a beloved foremother and celebrates Bethune’s commitment to “stand up and fight for change.”

A fine introduction to Bethune’s philosophy, as well as a thoughtful primer for today’s activists.