Mary McLeod Bethune: Village of God
Autor Yahya Jongintabaen Limba Engleză Hardback – 23 feb 2021
In this religious biography, author Yahya Jongintaba traces Bethune’s life of service in lively prose, structuring his book in a five-part framework that organizes his subject’s life in parallel with the Lord’s Prayer and virtues identified by Bethune herself: freedom, creativity, integrity, discipline, and love. With unfettered access to Bethune’s personal archive, Jongintaba paints a picture of a mother figure and mentor to generations, a nearsaint who lived “a blameless life for four-score years.” With deep empathy and the kind of “spiritual understanding” that Bethune had despaired of finding in a biographer in her own lifetime (despite attempts by publishers and herself to find just the right person), Jongintaba endeavors to achieve in his biography what Bethune wrote that she hoped to accomplish in an autobiography that never materialized: to “give to the world the real Mary McLeod Bethune’s life as I have lived it.”
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9781621906216
ISBN-10: 1621906213
Greutate: 0.64 kg
Ediția:1st Edition
Editura: University of Tennessee Press
Colecția Univ Tennessee Press
ISBN-10: 1621906213
Greutate: 0.64 kg
Ediția:1st Edition
Editura: University of Tennessee Press
Colecția Univ Tennessee Press
Notă biografică
YAHYA
JONGINTABA was
for
three
years
Professor
of
Religion
and
Humanities
at
Bethune-Cookman
University
when
he
researched
this
book
in
the
University’s
Mary
McCleod
Bethune
Papers.
Author
of
a
dozen
books
under
his
former
name,
Jon
Michael
Spencer,
Yahya
Jongintaba
continues
his
life
as
a
writer
in
the
ecovillage
he
founded
in
Tanzania,
for
which
Mary
McLeod
Bethune
serves
as
a
model
of
village
virtue.
Extras
She
is
twice
questioned
about
being
a
subversive:
in
1943,
by
the
House
of
Representatives,
and
in
1952,
by
a
citizen’s
group
in
Englewood,
New
Jersey.
Though
she
is
also
twice
exonerated,
she
need
not
be,
as
she
is
celebrated
as
a
saint.
Is
she
a
subversive
or
a
saint?
Or,
as
suggested
by
her
two
defenders,
is
it
that
saintliness
is
subversive?
As I have engaged in three years of research into the manuscript papers of Mary McLeod Bethune in the archives of the university she founded as something far less, such intensive research as to feel that I know the woman quite intimately, I am privileged in appropriating the words of theNews-Journaleditorialist to say: “Those of us who have known Mary McLeod Bethune through the years, from the days of her physical vigor, when she labored with her own hands, teaching by example as well as precept, to today, when time has cut down her physical forces and turned to snow the tresses which frame her wonderful black face, know the answer to these questions without equivocation.”1 Rabbi Stephen Wise knew Mary McLeod Bethune at least since the time she diarizes of her visit to him in New York on December 9, 1929.2 I feel that I know her not so much as an acquaintance or friend but as one who through mystical channels has met a saintly woman.
Since not everyone knows Mary McLeod Bethune as the woman that I know her to be in my heart and spirit, the reader may consider this book a step I am taking to promote her beatification in the world church that is her parish. What is meant by “the world church that is her parish” will come to light in due course. For the moment, it will suffice to say prefatorily that, even more than this woman having “lived a blameless life for four score years, according to the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, carrying out every step of the way the teachings of Jesus,” what for me makes the case of her beatification is the manner in which she penetrates deep into a lifework of seeing the kingdom or “village” of God come “on earth as in heaven.” Mary McLeod Bethune’s contribution to the vocation of bringing on earth “as in heaven” the village of God is for me the final piece rendering her worthy of beatification in “the world church that is her parish.”
Official biographer Rackham Holt, documenting this story in her interview notes but not mentioning it in her 1964 biography, always addresses her subject formally, as Mrs. Bethune or fully as Mary McLeod Bethune—McLeod being her subject’s family name and Bethune her married name. When writing of her subject as a young girl, the biographer calls her Mary Jane. Knowing that the college faculty and students of Bethune-Cookman sometimes refer to their president as “Big Mother,” the biographer nominates Bethune in her interview notes as “Mighty Mother” and “Magnificent Mother.”4 These references to Mary as “Mother” might have originated among youths of West Africa who write to this famed founder of Bethune-Cookman in hope of attending her College or getting her to help their country. Efiong Bassey Ekop, of Nigeria’s interior Ibibio Land, perhaps pays the highest of these “mother” tributes when he writes to the Bethune-Cookman president in July 1953 with regard to the Ibibio women he helps convert to Christianity: “After my explanation of your various activities in America to them, the women converts often asked me whether you are the mother of Jesus Christ or another Mary. I always replied them that you are one who has the interest of the African race at heart. They are eagerly wishing to see your photograph.”5 She was not Mary the mother of Jesus but another Mother Mary, whom many African students imagined to be something of a saint.
Along this line, one youth from Gold Coast (future Ghana) writes Mary in August 1953, addressing her as “My dear Grandmother,” or “Nana” in his language.6 He calls his addressee “Grandmother,” but it is much more common for African youths to call a distinguished older woman “mother,” as seen in the correspondences Mary receives from African youths who begin attending Bethune-Cookman in 1946.7 A former Bethune-Cookman student from Nigeria, Aliu Babkunde Fafunwa, addresses Mary as “My Dear Mother” in a letter he sends to her in October 1950 from graduate school at New York University.8 Ako Antigha, also from Nigeria and about to graduate Bethune-Cookman and attend Iowa State University, addresses Mary as “My loving Mother” in a July 1951 letter, signing off as “Your loving daughter.”9 A youth named Gregory Edohen, writing Mary from Nigeria in February 1950, addresses Mary as “Mother Mary.”10 Appreciative of the mother title, Mary responds to Gregory in March 1950: “I am always happy to have a letter from my African children. You have all learned to love me so dearly and think of me so tenderly.”11 She is another Mother Mary, whom many African students imagine to be something of a saint.
These African youths begin beatifying Mary in the mid-1940s. At the end of the decade, in 1949, a different sort of honorary title comes to her, this time not from “black Africa” but from “white America.” The title comes from Winter Park, Florida, when Rollins College becomes the first white higher-educational institution in the South to confer an honorary degree upon a Negro. This honorary degree gives Mary the title “Dr. Bethune,” but the honorary title of “Mother” seems to have held deeper meaning, as it is with this title that Mary signs many of her most intimate and important personal letters, including letters to Howard Thurman and his wife, Sue Bailey Thurman. “The school grew,” writes Mary’s biographer of the institution founded for girls in 1904. “All became Mrs. Bethune’s children, and all called her ‘Mother dear,’ her first honorary degree.”12 Her first honorary degree—and in this book we are writing subtly if not sublimely of her last “honorary degree.”
That Mary McLeod Bethune becomes the Magnificent Mother has something to do with why, in this book, we call her by none of the aforementioned formal titles and instead we bestow upon her a title capturing what one of her earliest students says about the highly accomplished and acclaimed Mary McLeod Bethune, Mrs. Bethune, Dr. Bethune. “Walking miracle,” says this former student in the biographer’s interview notes, a miracle whose footstep on any ground makes that ground “well stepped on.”13 The title we bestow upon the miracle, the magnificent, the beloved mother is not only justified by such testimonials as her official biographer gathers, or by the eulogy Howard Thurman presents at the end of her life, but also by the content of her own writings. A saint is what our village protagonist proves to be, considering all these writings, and not only a saint but also a mystic. A mystic coming to us from the villaged past and a saint coming to us from the envisaged future, we nominate the magnificent woman of our village story “Mary of Daytona.” Mary of Daytona is always what we mean when simply calling her “Mary”—not Mary the mother of Jesus but another Mary, bearing the name befitting of beatitude and a simple village story.
As I have engaged in three years of research into the manuscript papers of Mary McLeod Bethune in the archives of the university she founded as something far less, such intensive research as to feel that I know the woman quite intimately, I am privileged in appropriating the words of theNews-Journaleditorialist to say: “Those of us who have known Mary McLeod Bethune through the years, from the days of her physical vigor, when she labored with her own hands, teaching by example as well as precept, to today, when time has cut down her physical forces and turned to snow the tresses which frame her wonderful black face, know the answer to these questions without equivocation.”1 Rabbi Stephen Wise knew Mary McLeod Bethune at least since the time she diarizes of her visit to him in New York on December 9, 1929.2 I feel that I know her not so much as an acquaintance or friend but as one who through mystical channels has met a saintly woman.
Since not everyone knows Mary McLeod Bethune as the woman that I know her to be in my heart and spirit, the reader may consider this book a step I am taking to promote her beatification in the world church that is her parish. What is meant by “the world church that is her parish” will come to light in due course. For the moment, it will suffice to say prefatorily that, even more than this woman having “lived a blameless life for four score years, according to the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, carrying out every step of the way the teachings of Jesus,” what for me makes the case of her beatification is the manner in which she penetrates deep into a lifework of seeing the kingdom or “village” of God come “on earth as in heaven.” Mary McLeod Bethune’s contribution to the vocation of bringing on earth “as in heaven” the village of God is for me the final piece rendering her worthy of beatification in “the world church that is her parish.”
Official biographer Rackham Holt, documenting this story in her interview notes but not mentioning it in her 1964 biography, always addresses her subject formally, as Mrs. Bethune or fully as Mary McLeod Bethune—McLeod being her subject’s family name and Bethune her married name. When writing of her subject as a young girl, the biographer calls her Mary Jane. Knowing that the college faculty and students of Bethune-Cookman sometimes refer to their president as “Big Mother,” the biographer nominates Bethune in her interview notes as “Mighty Mother” and “Magnificent Mother.”4 These references to Mary as “Mother” might have originated among youths of West Africa who write to this famed founder of Bethune-Cookman in hope of attending her College or getting her to help their country. Efiong Bassey Ekop, of Nigeria’s interior Ibibio Land, perhaps pays the highest of these “mother” tributes when he writes to the Bethune-Cookman president in July 1953 with regard to the Ibibio women he helps convert to Christianity: “After my explanation of your various activities in America to them, the women converts often asked me whether you are the mother of Jesus Christ or another Mary. I always replied them that you are one who has the interest of the African race at heart. They are eagerly wishing to see your photograph.”5 She was not Mary the mother of Jesus but another Mother Mary, whom many African students imagined to be something of a saint.
Along this line, one youth from Gold Coast (future Ghana) writes Mary in August 1953, addressing her as “My dear Grandmother,” or “Nana” in his language.6 He calls his addressee “Grandmother,” but it is much more common for African youths to call a distinguished older woman “mother,” as seen in the correspondences Mary receives from African youths who begin attending Bethune-Cookman in 1946.7 A former Bethune-Cookman student from Nigeria, Aliu Babkunde Fafunwa, addresses Mary as “My Dear Mother” in a letter he sends to her in October 1950 from graduate school at New York University.8 Ako Antigha, also from Nigeria and about to graduate Bethune-Cookman and attend Iowa State University, addresses Mary as “My loving Mother” in a July 1951 letter, signing off as “Your loving daughter.”9 A youth named Gregory Edohen, writing Mary from Nigeria in February 1950, addresses Mary as “Mother Mary.”10 Appreciative of the mother title, Mary responds to Gregory in March 1950: “I am always happy to have a letter from my African children. You have all learned to love me so dearly and think of me so tenderly.”11 She is another Mother Mary, whom many African students imagine to be something of a saint.
These African youths begin beatifying Mary in the mid-1940s. At the end of the decade, in 1949, a different sort of honorary title comes to her, this time not from “black Africa” but from “white America.” The title comes from Winter Park, Florida, when Rollins College becomes the first white higher-educational institution in the South to confer an honorary degree upon a Negro. This honorary degree gives Mary the title “Dr. Bethune,” but the honorary title of “Mother” seems to have held deeper meaning, as it is with this title that Mary signs many of her most intimate and important personal letters, including letters to Howard Thurman and his wife, Sue Bailey Thurman. “The school grew,” writes Mary’s biographer of the institution founded for girls in 1904. “All became Mrs. Bethune’s children, and all called her ‘Mother dear,’ her first honorary degree.”12 Her first honorary degree—and in this book we are writing subtly if not sublimely of her last “honorary degree.”
That Mary McLeod Bethune becomes the Magnificent Mother has something to do with why, in this book, we call her by none of the aforementioned formal titles and instead we bestow upon her a title capturing what one of her earliest students says about the highly accomplished and acclaimed Mary McLeod Bethune, Mrs. Bethune, Dr. Bethune. “Walking miracle,” says this former student in the biographer’s interview notes, a miracle whose footstep on any ground makes that ground “well stepped on.”13 The title we bestow upon the miracle, the magnificent, the beloved mother is not only justified by such testimonials as her official biographer gathers, or by the eulogy Howard Thurman presents at the end of her life, but also by the content of her own writings. A saint is what our village protagonist proves to be, considering all these writings, and not only a saint but also a mystic. A mystic coming to us from the villaged past and a saint coming to us from the envisaged future, we nominate the magnificent woman of our village story “Mary of Daytona.” Mary of Daytona is always what we mean when simply calling her “Mary”—not Mary the mother of Jesus but another Mary, bearing the name befitting of beatitude and a simple village story.