March Book Pick
A Passionate Mind in Relentless
Pursuit : the Vision of Mary McLeod Bethune (2024)
by Noliwe Rooks
“Bethune’s resolve was no small thing.”
I was first acquainted with educator and civil rights
activist Mary McLeod Bethune as a teenager in the 1990s through an article in New
Moon, a girls’ magazine I subscribed to.
Inspired by her passion for educating African American girls in the
early 20th century, I never forgot her name. This slim 2024 biography
of Mary McLeod Bethune, A Passionate Mind in Relentless
Pursuit : the Vision of Mary McLeod Bethune, is by Noliwe Rooks, a Brown
University Professor and author of note, and was purchased by the library in
2025 and dedicated to our retiring Acquisitions Assistant, Connie Williams.
Through this book, I learned that not only did Bethune found
a school for Black girls in Daytona, Florida, she also fought for voting rights
for African Americans, found the National Council of Negro Women, played a role
in founding the Tuskegee Airmen, and lead in many other organizations. Rooks, writing in first person, tells the
story of the most significant achievements of Bethune’s life as well as how she
is now commemorated in the US. Rooks
even includes Bethune’s Last Will and Testament, a document published in Ebony
magazine after her death in 1955, that did not bequeath money but rather
Bethune’s wisdom she had gained through many years of organizing, educating,
and advocating. Most important to
Bethune were “the ballot and the book,” and Rooks in fact also concludes that
education is “a starting point for Black empowerment.”
Bethune’s tools were “her voice, her courage, her faith, her
intellect, and her ability to inspire others..,” and she used these tools successfully
and persistently to help others, particularly Black women and girls. In 1935, when she was appointed to a federal
government position under FDR, the National Youth Administration (NYA) Negro Affairs
Director, she created 5 camps – including one in
Arkansas – to help unemployed, single, young adult Black women learn vocational
skills, Black history, writing skills, and leadership, all while being paid.
Mary McLeod Bethune was a beacon to African Americans, and
while this biography is not comprehensive, it does shine an introductory light
on a significant figure in American history.
I recommend it.
- Associate Librarian Melissa Freiley
Last Modified 3/04/2026