Mary McLeod Bethune

We're excited to have a new foreword written by HeritageMom, Amber O'Neal Johnston. See more below!

Here’s the inspiring true story of a young girl determined to read, who went on to become a teacher, the founder of a college and a hospital, an adviser to politicians, and a great humanitarian. She was Mary McLeod Bethune, the fifteenth child of hardworking parents, and the first of her family born into freedom. Her ancestry was entirely of African origin, a point of pride throughout her life.

Mrs. Bethune worked tirelessly to educate Black people, both children and adults, and to provide them with healthcare, all as a foundation for lifting themselves out of poverty and illiteracy.

Young people of all races and walks of life will broaden their horizons by reading her story, the story of a compassionate,  courageous,  extraordinary woman who made a way out of no way.

Illustrated by Raymond Lufkin.

Amber O’Neal Johnston is a writer, speaker, and home educator who blends life-giving books with a culturally-rich environment for her four children and others. She’s the author of A Place to Belong, a guide for families of all backgrounds to celebrate cultural heritage and embrace inclusivity in the home and beyond, and she’s known for sharing literary “mirrors and windows” on HeritageMom.com.

Emma Gelders Sterne was born into a German-Jewish family in 1894, in Birmingham, Alabama. From an early age she became involved in the women's suffrage movement, later she advocated for racial equality, civil rights, and organized labor to protect worker's rights. She was active in the ACLU, NAACP, and the Congress for Racial Equality.

Social justice, Native American history and slavery were topics in many of Sterne's 44 books. She was also a school teacher and a children's book editor. During the 1960s she co-wrote the Kathy Martin series with her daughter Barbara Lindsay. She is perhaps most well-known as the author of Long Black Schooner: The Voyage of the Amistad. Sterne died in California in 1971.