Early next year, Mary McLeod Bethune will make history as the first Black person to have a state-commissioned statue in the U.S. Capitol. Her statue will replace the Confederate general statue at the Capitol’s Statuary Hall.
Bethune was an influential educator and civil rights activist. She founded the National Council of Negro Women, advised multiple U.S presidents, and created a boarding school for Black children which later became Bethune-Cookman University.
The statue of Bethune has already been created and was recently unveiled in her home state of Florida. It will be moved from Florida to the Capitol in early 2022.
The statue was created by artist Nilda Comas, the first Hispanic master sculptor to create a statue for the National Statuary Hall State Collection.
Original post by Rachel Treisman/NPR
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/14/1045964525/mary-mcleod-bethune-statue-us-capitol-florida-unveiling
