Mary McLeod Bethune worthy of D.C. pedestal — Confederate is not
When politicians don’t like the results, they finagle and move goalposts to get the results that they desire. As a man of color, I have been to this play before. It’s happening again.
In 1922, the state of Florida erected a statue honoring Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith in the National Statuary Hall Collection of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. In 2016, Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed legislation to remove the statue.
Even as the Florida Legislature tries to address the state’s sordid history and mistreatment of African-Americans since the Civil War, some members of the Florida House of Representatives continue to drag their feet. They’re kicking and screaming, intent on fighting the Civil War all over again, rather than doing the right thing.
A cynic would say they want to prolong and perhaps even enhance the shameful legacy of one Floridian’s place in history. Gen. Smith’s dubious claim to fame? He was the last officer to surrender a significant Confederate military force during the Civil War.
For those House members, here’s a refresher course in American History 101:
On April 9, 1865, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. The Civil War ended.
A decade after the great conflict, on July 10, 1875, Mary Jane McLeod was born in Mayesville, S.C. She was one of 17 children of former slaves. She became an educator, civil-rights activist and political adviser to multiple U.S. presidents, and became one of the most prominent African-Americans of early 20th-century America. But her path was never easy: By age 25, she had been educated by Northern Presbyterians at Scotia Seminary in Concord, N.C., and trained as an evangelist at the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago under Dwight L. Moody, the premier American evangelist of that day. After her time at Moody, it was her desire to go to Africa as an evangelist, but she was stymied because of sexism and racism. Why? She was a woman and she was black.
Through a circuitous route, she ended up in Florida, working at a migrant camp in Palatka. By then married, Mary McLeod Bethune was told that Henry Flagler was building a railroad from Jacksonville to Miami, with mostly former slaves whose daughters were running willy-nilly, needing training and supervision, in the Ormond/ Daytona Beach area.
In 1904, with five students, faith in God and $1.50 in her pocket, Bethune founded a school for African American students that later became Bethune-Cookman University. Bethune’s school for young girls would become a prominent school to teach both academic and practical skills to black women. The school taught them domestic science courses, along with business and liberal arts courses.
She went on to political and social prominence having access and advisement to U.S. presidents from Herbert Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman about “Negro affairs.”
Why the history lesson? It was George Santayana who said, “A people who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.”
Two years ago in a poll that was taken to winnow the large field and select three finalists to replace Kirby Smith, the top three were Mary McLeod Bethune, Marjory Stoneman Douglas and George Jenkins. In fact, Bethune won handily against the nearest competitor.
Recently, the Florida Senate, by a voice vote, passed a resolution for a statue of Bethune to replace Kirby Smith. However, members of the Florida House of Representatives have resisted Bethune. Why, they’ve even added animator Walt Disney to the mix — a man who never lived in Florida (and who finished 10th in the same poll that placed Bethune first).
Vox-Populi — “The people have spoken!” Bethune has won the vote overwhelmingly as the people’s choice, and it is time for the Florida Legislature collectively to do the right thing.
Put Bethune in the statuary in Washington now, and stop fighting the Civil War over again.
A postscript: Bethune would be the first person and woman of color from the 50 states voted to such an honor, even though Rosa Parks was the first AfricanAmerican put into Statuary Hall by a special act of Congress in 2005. It is ironic that Parks, born in Alabama and who spent most of her adult life in Michigan, was not accorded the honor by either state.
For the first time in history, Florida has the opportunity to be on the positive side of history. We rarely are.