Diamond in the Rough

Rubbing sleep from her eyes, Mary Jane glanced around the living area of her family's small farmhouse, watching as her siblings began the morning meal. She stared at the empty bowl on her lap, idly tapping her spoon against it as if it might elicit a tune. Would there be enough grits left for her to stave off any hunger until the family's evening meal, she wondered.

There were 14 mouths to feed before her turn with the ladle and cauldron. And, of course, there were mam and pap as well. She watched her siblings, scattered about the room - most seated on the room's dirt floor - as they sated their own hunger.

As Mary's eyes swept the room, they rested briefly on her mam. She wondered why mam was growing plump. "Strange," she thought. Mam ate like the rest of the family. "No one else in the family was the least bit plump," she observed to herself.

In a few months, Mary would meet a new sibling, meaning she would no longer be the family's baby. And the new life would not be the last; eventually, her siblings would number 16.

At meal's end, Mary's older siblings followed pap out of the house to tend the McLeod family's cotton crops. She knew her family was fortunate to own their small South Carolina farm, or so she was told. It was purchased with hard-earned money scrimped and saved since the Civil War ended 10 years before Mary was born.

Mam, pap, and several of her eldest siblings were enslaved for years prior to the war and would often narrate tales of life as slaves. It was an existence that even Mary's curious and bright mind could not comprehend. With a nod and a wink each assured Mary she was lucky to be emancipated.

Emancipated: it was a word she could barely pronounce, but soon would learn to embrace.

As Mary waited for her good luck to emerge, she bided her time - beginning at five years old - picking the cotton that would sustain the Mayesville McLeod's simple lifestyle. It was in those fields where the exceptional drive that would become her legacy surfaced. By the time she was nine, Mary could pick 250 lbs. of cotton a day!

That luck eventually did materialize. To Mary's joy, she was chosen for attendance at a school established by a missionary from the Presbyterian Church.

She hummed on the five-mile walk to school, thanking the physical stamina and fortitude gained by working the family fields beside her siblings. On the same five-mile trek home, Mary mentally recounted the day's lessons so she could share them with her family.

"The whole world opened to me when I learned to read," she once remarked. So, beginning with her family, Mary proceeded to open the world for others, evolving into the teacher, the mentor, the leader she would be throughout her lifetime.

Mary Jane McLeod Bethune became unstoppable. Refused a missionary position in Africa because she was Black - oh, the irony - she taught for several years in South Carolina.

After moving to Florida with her husband and $1.50 in funds, she founded a school for Black girls. This achievement, however, was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

During her lifetime, Mary was an educator, a social justice activist, a builder of schools and hospitals, founded the National Council of Negro Women, and was a member of FDR's "Black Cabinet."

Her educational and leadership achievements are so numerous that in 2023, a statue of Mary McLeod Bethune was unveiled in the U.S. Capitol, the first Black American in the National Statuary Hall Collection.

Mary held to this belief during her lifetime: "Invest in the human soul. Who knows, it might be a diamond in the rough."

Indeed, she was that gem.