A Passionate Mind in Relentless Pursuit: The Vision of Mary McLeod Bethune

Another entry in the “Significations” series edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr. A statue of Mary McLeod Bethune stands proudly in the statuary hall at the U.S. Capitol. The stone she is carved from is the last of the marble that came from the vein that gave the world Michelangelo’s David. This one spoiler is just the tip of the iceberg from this book that will leave listeners wondering why they haven’t heard this before. Bethune and her biographer Rooks (Africana studies, Brown Univ.; Cutting School: The Segrenomics of American Education) grew up in the same part of Florida, where Bethune started to parlay her influence; this personal connection to her subject makes Rooks’s well-researched book intimate as well. Rooks identified herself as an example of Bethune’s far-reaching influence, as Bethune set out to provide for the education of Black students and advocate legislation and social policies that provided equal opportunity for all. Actor and narrator Danielle Lee James causes listeners to feel almost as though they are listening to the author narrate her own work and relate all the anecdotes about her famous subject that she has discovered. The intimacy does not preclude precise diction that lays down the information garnered by the research.