This February 2025, we’re honoring Black Historical past Month. The 2025 theme is “African People and Labor,” emphasizing the affect Black People have made by varied working roles.
We’d like to acknowledge the numerous contributions of three Black educators who helped form the way forward for increased schooling, breaking down obstacles and provoking generations of learners and academic leaders.
Mary McLeod Bethune
Mary McLeod Bethune is considered one of the crucial important Black educators and civil rights activists of the twentieth century. The daughter of previously enslaved dad and mom, Bethune believed schooling was key to opening the doorways of alternative for Black People. She based the Daytona Regular and Industrial Institute for Negro Ladies in Daytona, Florida, in 1904, serving as president of the varsity. The varsity was finally mixed with the Cookman Institute for Males in 1923 (different sources cite 1929), merging to type the Bethune-Cookman Faculty, Bethune turning into the primary Black girl to function a school president. The school was one of many few establishments the place Black college students may search a school diploma. And as of fall 2023, Bethune-Cookman College enrolled 2,415 undergraduate college students.
Kelly Miller
Kelly Miller was a groundbreaking educator, mathematician and author, turning into the primary Black man to attend Johns Hopkins College for post-graduate examine. He would go on to finally be a part of Howard College’s college as a arithmetic professor, serving to discovered the American Negro Academy in 1897, the primary group for Black students and artists.
Miller launched sociology to Howard’s curriculum in 1895, turning into the primary individual to show the topic on the college. Ultimately turning into dean of Howard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1907, he labored so as to add new pure and social science programs, reworking the curriculum. As a result of his tireless recruitment efforts throughout the south, pupil enrollment tripled throughout his first 4 years in that place.
Mary Jane Patterson
Changing into the primary Black girl to obtain a bachelor’s diploma when she graduated from Oberlin Faculty in 1862, Mary Jane Patterson rapidly established herself as trailblazer. She devoted her profession to schooling, educating on the Institute of Coloured Youth, now generally known as Cheyney College, finally turning into the varsity principal on the Preparatory Excessive Faculty for Coloured Youth, the primary U.S. public highschool for Black People. The Mary Jane Patterson Scholarship was established in 2019, which goals to help post-baccalaureate college students who’re excited by educating in city school rooms.
Throughout this Black Historical past Month 2025, we have a good time the contributions of those three Black educators whose accomplishments proceed to ring out all through increased schooling as we speak.
For those who’re excited by historical past content material in your course, we encourage you to browse our historical past catalog.
