MCLEOD BETHUNE and Entrepreneur by Bethune-Cookman University Photos courtesy of Bethune-Cookman University Archives
Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune was never one to shy away from a challenge. As an African American woman living at the turn of the 19th century, Dr. Bethune faced a tremendous amount of adversity and setbacks, which she met with a fierce entrepreneurial spirit and a knack for innovative thought. To this day, her legacy resonates throughout the Daytona Beach area.
“ The spiritual and educational creed expressed in Dr. Bethune’ s life and in her‘ Last Will and Testament,’ reflect the core ideas that guide Daytona Beach,” said Mayor Derrick Henry.“ Her legacy challenges us to live out our values both individually and collectively. She serves as the moral compass that binds us together and inspires us to reach for our destiny.”
Although Dr. Bethune is best known as an educator, public figure in government, and Black women’ s club activist, she was also a successful businesswoman who made a substantial impact on the economic success of early Daytona Beach. Her personal and financial investments not only laid a foundation of success for others but also ensured fiscal security for her and her family.
And like the other aspects of her life, Dr. Bethune’ s entrepreneurial spirit centered on improving the lives of those in Black communities. In addition to establishing businesses to serve the people, she also invested in businesses. Here is a look at some of her more lucrative efforts.
Insurance Business
Dr. Bethune played a notable role in the insurance business in North Central and Central Florida. Noting the lack of insurance companies catering specifically to the Black community, Dr. Bethune lent her support to two companies, according to historical accounts.
Dr. Bethune held capital stock in the Afro-American Life Insurance Company of Jacksonville and is noted as a co-founder of the Central Life Insurance Company of Tampa. Her association with Central Life Insurance began in 1923, when 13 men, led by Tampa realtor and mortician Garfield D. Rodgers, offered Dr. Bethune the opportunity to join them in the insurance business.
This opportunity proved most lucrative for Dr. Bethune. Using the extra earnings from selling insurance, Dr. Bethune was able to pay off the mortgage on the“ Homestead,” the estate in which she was born and raised in Mayesville, South Carolina, and buy a modern home for her parents.
Bethune Beach
As mentioned earlier, Dr. Bethune was an activist who advocated for the civil and personal rights of people of color. While she made her voice heard on a national level on many occasions, in the early 1940s, she took on a local cause – the lack of access to Daytona’ s public beaches for people of color.
Although beaches had been open to all races during Daytona Beach’ s founding years, by the 1940s, a series of Jim Crow laws banned African Americans from most of Florida’ s beaches where whites could go.
In 1943, working with a group of wealthy African American investors, including George Engram Sr., owner of Engram Electric, the Bethune-Cookman University founder purchased a 2.5-mile strip of land in New Smyrna Beach, 23 miles south of Daytona, for $ 200,000. She and Mr. Engram envisioned a resort town where African Americans could gather in peace and enjoy the surf and sun, all the while experiencing economic empowerment as property owners.
The beach was incorporated as Bethune-Volusia Beach, with Dr. Bethune serving as its first president. Shortly thereafter, the land was subdivided into 800 properties and sold to African Americans who wanted to live beachside.
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