NPS / NABWH Celebrating Mary McLeod BethuneWho doesn’t love a good birthday celebration?Each year, the National Park Service honors Mary McLeod Bethune with events on or around her birthday. Each of these events highlight her amazing life and showcases her legacy for all to remember. Mrs. Bethune—educator, civil rights activist, presidential advisor, public servant, and champion of women’s rights—was born on July 10, 1875 in Mayesville, South Carolina. In 1974, on what would have been her 99th birthday, a memorial in her honor was unveiled in Lincoln Park in Washington, D.C. by the organization she founded, the National Council of Negro Women, Inc. (NCNW). Each year, we incorporate that Memorial into our programming to honor its dedication as the first memorial to an African American and a woman erected on public land in the nation’s capital.
NPS Photo This Year’s CelebrationsThis year, the National Park Service is celebrating the 149th Anniversary of the Birth of Mary McLeod Bethune and the 50th Anniversary of the unveiling and dedication of the Mary McLeod Bethune Memorial in Lincoln Park!Join us on Saturday, July 13th at Lincoln Park for our annual special event. More details to come! 
NPS, NABWH Past CelebrationsDuring her lifetime, Mary McLeod Bethune’s birthday was often used as a platform for fundraising for the NCNW, as well as Bethune-Cookman University, the school she established in Daytona Beach, Florida. During her time in Washington, D.C., there were a number of events held right here in the nation's capital that included venues like the D.C. Armory, Phyllis Wheatley YWCA, and even Griffith Stadium. For several years, the Homestead Grays, a Negro Leagues baseball team, collaborated with the NCNW and sponsored baseball games at Griffith Stadium to help the NCNW in the fundraising efforts for the construction of the Liberty Ship S. S. Harriet Tubman.After Mrs. Bethune’s death in 1955, these birthday celebrations continued. Under the administration of Dorothy I. Height, NCNW’s fourth national president, luminaries such as Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, actress Cicely Tyson, comedian Dick Gregory, executive/activist Vernon Jordan, and Mrs. Coretta Scott King took part in the NCNW-sponsored celebrations, which helped to bring a visibility to the national organization and Mrs. Bethune’s legacy. 
Johnson Publishing Company LegacyHow do you want to be remembered?Your legacy is how you will be remembered by others based on how you lived and what you contributed. You can chose your legacy by being intentional about your values, your actions, and your impact. Your legacy can include material possessions, your family, your faith, your generosity, your standards, and your influence. Your legacy is a reflection of who you are and what you care about. There are no words that can be more strengthening than the words of one of the greatest personalities of the twentieth century, who in her last literary pronouncement, left a legacy that has become one of the greatest historical documents of our time. These same words or tenets of her Last Will and Testament or "Legacy" are found around the base of the Bethune Memorial in Lincoln Park. They are also found here below:
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Last updated: April 6, 2024