Mary earned scholarships to Scotia Seminary and Moody Bible Institute, where she trained to become a missionary in Africa. But when she applied, the Presbyterian Board rejected her application. The reason? “We don’t need Negro missionaries in Africa.”
Devastated but undeterred, Mary decided: If I can’t teach in Africa, I’ll teach here.
In 1898, she married Albertus Bethune. By 1904, with a five-year-old son and a husband who would soon abandon them, Mary arrived in Daytona Beach, Florida, with exactly $1.50 to her name.
She found a rundown cottage near the city dump and convinced the landlord to accept her $1.50 as a down payment on the $11 monthly rent. Her plan? Start a school for Black girls—daughters of railroad workers who had nowhere else to learn.
On October 3, 1904, the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls opened its doors.
Her first class: five little girls between ages six and twelve, and her son Albert. Tuition: 50 cents per week.
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