Faithful Servitude: Noliwe Rooks on Mary McCleod Bethune and 3 Other Books on the African American Icon

A Passionate Mind in Relentless Pursuit: The Vision of Mary McLeod Bethune — there’s no one that knows as much about her as the author Noliwe Rooks.

Rooks’ newest biography, published in 2024, covers a tremendously profound Black woman who deserves further reverence. As Rooks describes her, Mary McCleod Bethune (1875-1955) is a “public black political sphere to herself.” The book details how she “changed the nature of democracy and access and inclusion at a federal level.”

Bethune practiced a strong liberatory ethic. This chronology is an arc of some of her many accomplishments: the first in her family to have been born free in 1875 in South Carolina; founded her own college for girls, Bethune-Cookman College, in Dayton Beach, Fla. in 1904 and maintained a curriculum that emphasized self-sufficiency; essential to the establishment of voting rights in Daytona, Fla.; trounced Ida B. Wells to serve as president of the National Association for Colored Women (a black clubwomen movement) in 1924; advocated for desegregation for economic betterment; and sought involvement for historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the civilian pilot training program at the start of WWII. Bethune was the first African American to have a state-commissioned statue at the United States Capitol, commissioned in 2022.

Moreover, as Rooks in a recent book discussion states, MMB talked about and practiced “love and care for black people and black communities,” as “much of her work was in service to women and to children.” This is one very encouraging read. Check out the Art Tatum Research Center’s copy for Black History Month and the March 2025 Big Idea Book Club for Women’s History Month, and other titles in the collection.