Mary McLeod Bethune

CTL-E-5960 · Person · educator · 1875–1955

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07198 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-5960.

Mary McLeod Bethune (Mary Jane McLeod Bethune, born July 10, 1875, Mayesville, South Carolina, to parents who had been enslaved; died May 18, 1955, Daytona Beach, aged 79) built a college from $1.50 and a movement from that college. On October 3, 1904, she opened her Daytona school for Black girls with $1.50 in capital; through a 1923 merger it became Bethune-Cookman College, now Bethune-Cookman University. She presided over the National Association of Colored Women in 1924, founded the National Council of Negro Women in 1935 and served as its first president, advised President Franklin D. Roosevelt, organized the Federal Council on Negro Affairs — the “Black Cabinet” — and became the first Black woman to head a federal agency division, directing the National Youth Administration's Division of Negro Affairs. In 1945 she was the only Black woman holding an official role in the United States delegation at the founding conference of the United Nations. Ebony in July 1949 named her the “acknowledged First Lady of Negro America.”

The record

• Also known as: Mary Jane McLeod Bethune

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 2 — 747 Program, Wave 9; second Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Mary McLeod Bethune entity in the live graph at 3,603 entities (exact / normalized / alias + token containment); ID CTL-E-5960 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 4 — corpus scan tail tranche, ranks #751–#1400 (corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked clean survivor #1001). The scan supplied the NAME STRING ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — founder-educator at the center of the club movement and the Black Cabinet; core scope, and the senior figure of this packet's Terrell–Height line. Vital status: DECEASED — died May 18, 1955, aged 79 (Florida Historical Society; Wikipedia). Tribute treatment in the Curator's Judgment. STATISTICS (sourced, dated): Founding capital of her school: $1.50, October 3, 1904 (Florida Historical Society; Wikipedia). First Black woman to direct a federal agency division (NYA Division of Negro Affairs); only Black woman with an official role in the U.S. delegation at the 1945 UN founding conference. NCNW presidency passed to Dorothy Height (CTL-E-5964) in 1957 — the related_to edge between them is staged in this packet. MEDIA: photo HELD (Mary McLeod Bethune portrait (Library of Congress) named as candidate; no file-page verification in this pass); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-5960-mary-mcleod-bethune.svg); video HELD (no matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged); audio HELD (no rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Non-place record; no map attaches at the entity layer.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created SVG (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced facts) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map catalog (checked by name and variants), and no official/em) | audio = HELD (No audiobook excerpt or author recording with a CTL rights basis was staged in this pass.)

Referenced by

• Bethune-Cookman University — founded by → this record
• Dorothy Height — related to → this record
• National Council of Negro Women — founded by → this record

Sources

• Wikipedia, "Mary McLeod Bethune" (accessed 2026-10-16) — July 10, 1875 Mayesville birth, May 18, 1955 Daytona Beach death at 79, the October 3, 1904 school opening on $1.50, the 1923 merger, the NACW presidency (1924), the NCNW founding (1935), the Black Cabinet and NYA firsts, the 1945 UN delegation role, and the 1949 Ebony line — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_McLeod_Bethune (primary source · build store)
• Florida Historical Society, "Death of Mary McLeod Bethune" (May 18, 1955 date-in-history) (accessed 2026-10-16) — the state historical society's account of her death and Florida career — https://myfloridahistory.org/date-in-history/may-18-1955/death-mary-mcleod-bethune (primary source · build store)

More person records

• Jay Lethal
• Jay McShann
• Jay Versace
• Jay-Ann Lopez
• Jay-Z
• Jayden Daniels

Browse the full directory: all entity records

Record CTL-E-5960 · Combined Graph record U-07198 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 2 sources · 3 mapped relationships.
Directory: all entity records · the knowledge graph

Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

Cite this record

Citation guidance for teachers, journalists, and funders: How to Cite Us.

From the Archive

The archive in pictures

The people, places, and institutions this work documents. Photographs from the CultureTechLens research record — rights-cleared, credited, and cited like everything else here.