Mary McLeod Bethune Cultural Heritage Arts Festival Friday, Oct. 4, 2013 5:30-8:00 PM, Bethune-Cookman University, Daytona Beach, FL

BETHUNE: Out of the darkness and into the light of Freedom; Dr. Evelyn Bethune

Evelyn Bethune, granddaughter of Mary McLeod Bethune, stands recently in front of the statue of her grandmother at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach. An inaugural Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Cultural Heritage Arts Festival is Planned for October.

News-Journal/David Massey

The Daytona Beach News-Journal

Festival planned to further Bethune's legacy

By Deborah Circelli

EDUCATION WRITER

Friday, February 22, 2013 at 6:46 p.m.

DAYTONA BEACH — The story of how Mary McLeod Bethune opened a school with $1.50, faith in God and five little girls is so well-known her granddaughter worries the rest of the tale might be forgotten.

How Bethune advised four presidents; carried picket signs in Atlanta, Washington and other places to support boycotts of stores that would not hire blacks; became the first African-American woman appointed as head of a federal agency.

"Mary McLeod Bethune is an international icon," said Evelyn Bethune, who speaks across the U.S. about her grandmother, especially in February for Black History Month. "Daytona Beach probably knows less about her than other places around the country."

Bethune wants her grandmother to be remembered as "more than the founder" of Bethune-Cookman University, and hopes to raise awareness and celebrate Bethune's life and history through an inaugural Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Cultural Heritage Arts Festival. Planned for Oct. 3-7, the festival will also be a catalyst for economic and cultural development in the Midtown community and the Daytona Beach area and attract people from across the country and the world, Bethune said.

Sponsorships and hundreds of volunteers are needed to help with planning and working the festival, which is expected to cost about $200,000, including in-kind services.

"There are organizations my grandmother started all over the country," Bethune said. "Her impact in terms of the times she did the things she did deserves national recognition. What better place than Daytona Beach to do that."