Bethune-Cookman University

Bethune-Cookman University

640 Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Boulevard

Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune moved to Daytona Beach to open a school for the children of poor Black laborers of the Florida East Coast Railroad. She found a rundown building and persuaded the owner to accept $1.50 as a down payment for the $11 per month rent. Groceries were donated from generous neighbors. Of that time, she later wrote, "I haunted the city dump and the trash piles behind hotels, retrieving discarded linen and kitchen ware, cracked dishes, broken chairs, pieces of old lumber. Everything was scoured and mended." Andrea Broadwater; Mary McLeod Bethune: Educator and Activist (Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, Inc., 2003), 37. bid., 52.

In October 1904, the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls opened with five students (ages 8-12) who paid 50 cents a week for tuition.

Mrs. Bethune impressed several wealthy white vacationers and winter residents with her strong will, spirit of sacrifice and ambitions for the school. The school’s early benefactors and/or board members included oil baron John D. Rockefeller, James N. Gamble (Procter & Gamble), sewing machine innovator Thomas H. White, Ransom Eli Olds (of Oldsmobile and REO Motor Company) and author Harrison Rhodes.

In 1923, this school merged with the all-male Cookman Institute of Jacksonville, Florida, and became accredited in 1931, changing the name officially to Bethune-Cookman College. At that time, Bethune became the first Black woman to serve as a college president and it was one of a few institutions below the Mason-Dixon Line where Blacks could receive education beyond a high school diploma. Now a fully accredited university, the school enrolls over 3,000 students from more than 20 countries.

Timeline

1875 - Born in Mayesville, SC

1904 - Founded the Daytona Normal & Industrial Institute for Girls

1923 - Cookman Institute Merger

1931 - Became Bethune-Cookman College - Dr. Bethune President

1949 - Dr. Bethune Retired

1955 - Dr. Bethune died in her home on Campus

1958 - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers commencement address

1963 - Howard Thurman delivers commencement address

2007 - Becomes Bethune-Cookman University