4/20/2018 | Author: Johanne Castagan
Good news: The legislature passed and the governor signed a resolution to replace Florida’s statute in the nation’s capitol with Mary McLeod Bethune. (It had been Kirby Smith, the last Confederate general to surrender.) Bethune not only was the founder of Bethune Cookman
University, but also was the world’s most famous woman of color in her time. Among other achievements, President Harry Truman appointed her to the founding meeting of the United Nations. Her image will be the first of an African-American woman in the capitol’s Statuary Hall. Great thanks is due to Kathy Castor; without her leadership, this would not have happened.