ORLANDO, Fla. — A Florida champion of civil and women’s rights took the spotlight Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol National Statuary Hall with the unveiling of a marble statue of Central Florida icon Mary McLeod Bethune — the founder of Bethune-Cookman University.
McLeod Bethune’s statue is one of two statues that will depict the Black educator, civil rights activist and suffragette. The other statue is made of bronze and will be unveiled in August at Bethune Plaza in Riverfront Esplanade Park in Daytona Beach.
Her Washington statue replaces a statue of Confederate general Edmund Kirby Smith in the U.S. Capitol, one of two statues allotted each state in the hall.
“Today we are rewriting the history we want to share with our future generations. We are replacing a remnant of hatred and division with a symbol of hope and inspiration,” said Rep. Frederica Wilson.
The National Statuary Hall statue stands at 11 feet tall and is made of marble from the same Tuscan quarry that Michelangelo used from the Italian Alps. The block the sculpture was carved from weighs 11,500 tons.
The statue was created by Fort Lauderdale artist Nilda Comas who won a national competition run by Florida’s Council on Arts and Culture in 2016. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi noted she is the first Hispanic artist with a statue in the national hall.
Comas told the South Florida Sun Sentinel her artistic process is to research her subject’s personality and history “so I am feeling the person when I start creating the piece. I want it to be very human, so it will move people in a certain way.”
Speaking about McLeod Bethune, Comas said, “she is quite an interesting person, coming from a humble background,” noting that Bethune’s parents were slaves. “She pretty much taught herself to read and write after a little white girl told her Blacks couldn’t do that. She ended up being very good friends with (President Franklin) Roosevelt.”
At the foot of her statue is McLeod Bethune’s famous quote: “Invest in the human soul. Who knows, it may be a diamond in the rough.”
The statue was on display in Daytona Beach in late 2021 before its journey to Washington.
After the statue’s unveiling, Rep. Kathy Castor spoke about the educator’s role in Florida history.
“I am proud to be a Floridian this morning because the people of the state of Florida have sent the great educator and civil rights leader Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune to represent our dynamic and diverse state, the first to be represented by a Black American in National Statuary Hall,” she said. “Dr. Bethune epitomizes the values we hold dear: industriousness, thirst for education, desire to build peace among people.”
“She devoted her life to equal rights and service, service yes to presidents, but to students, women, her race, veterans and everyday Americans,” Castor continued. “We lift her up today at a time of competing ideologies to help heal and unify through her example, because she also lived at a time of division, but determined to stand up to dissenting voices including the Ku Klux Klan to do what many said could not be done. When Blacks were denied education, she built a school; denied medical care, she built a hospital. When the world was grappling with authoritarianism, she helped establish the foundational commitment to human rights through the United Nations.”
The ceremony was also attended by both Democratic and GOP legislators including Pelosi, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Florida Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, as well as Florida Reps. Val Demings and Michael Waltz.
“I was born and raised in Florida and I remember as a little girl listening to my mother and my father talk about a Black woman, a woman who looked like us, who started a college, an institution of higher learning in Florida,” said Demings. “As I listened to my parents tell the story it seemed impossible, but Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune made what seemed impossible, possible. As a child she picked up a book and was told, ‘Put that down. You can’t read.’ But she refused to be defined by those children that day, and went on to become one of the most powerful educators and most influential women in Florida’s history, and in the history of our nation.
“Dr. Bethune was determined to create opportunities for every child, every child regardless of the color of their skin, and wanted to make sure every child received one of life’s most precious gifts, and that was an education. She was ahead of her time, but she knew she was on the right side. She knew that her work was for the greater good, that her investment was in something bigger than Dr. Bethune. Her labor of love could not be contained by her years on this Earth. Her contributions will touch generations yet unborn. She was bold, courageous, and although her journey had its triumphs and its struggles, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune never waivered. She never blinked. She never flinched in her commitment to excellence.
“A powerful educator of course, but we all know she was so much more. She served her community, her state, her country, from the schoolhouse to the White House. Dr. Bethune did her part to form that more perfect union that we love to talk about and to establish justice.”
McLeod Bethune was born near Mayesville, South Carolina, in 1875 and was the 15th child of former slaves, according to the Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Statuary Fund. She championed women’s rights to join the military, became a world-renowned educator, civil rights and human rights leader, and served as an advisor to five U.S. presidents.
The Statuary Fund was able to raise $400,000 for the creation of McLeod Bethune’s statue and an additional $150,000 for the bronze statue. In total, the fund raised $800,000 for the entirety of the project, which included a full-length documentary and the ability to host the marble statue at an exhibit at Daytona Beach.
———
