Education is a very important role today in society, although it has not always been a privilege for African Americans it has allowed people like Mary McLeod Bethune to take action. Mary McLeod Bethune was a racial justice activist who sought to improve educational opportunities for African Americans. She is known as the "First Lady of the Struggle," she devoted her career to improving the lives of African Americans through education and political and economic empowerment. Mary McLeod was the daughter of former slaves. She graduated from Scotia Seminary in Concord, North Carolina, in 1893 and from the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago in 1895. She married Albertus L. Bethune in 1898, and until 1903 she taught in a succession of small Southern
