Mary McLeod Bethune papers, 1923-1942 | Amistad Research Center

Scope and Contents: This collection consists primarily of outgoing and incoming correspondence.  Primary correspondents include John Hope, Frank S. Horne, Mary W. Ovington, William Pickens, the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Sr., John J. Tigert, Walter White, Roy Wilkins, and Plummer Bernard Young. The correspondence is chiefly invitations to speak and letters of congratulations to Bethune after being named the recipient of the 21st Joel E. Spingarn Medal. This includes a congratulatory telegram from Herbert Hoover, then President of the United States. Other materials include two travel journals, collected essays, speeches, photographs, programs, invitations, newspaper clippings, and miscellaneous articles. Several of Bethune's speeches are for commencement exercises as well as fundraising projects for Bethune-Cookman College and the National Association of Colored Women. The travel journals consist of two different journals kept by Bethune during a European tour sponored by the National Medical Association. One journal is her day journal in which Bethune noted activites and impressions, while the other records the same activities and impressions in more detailed and reflective thought.