A distinguished educator and government adviser, Mary McLeod Bethune won enormous social and political gains for African Americans during the first half of the twentieth century. In 1904 she founded a school for black girls in Daytona, Florida that would eventually become Bethune-Cookman University. In 1936 she became the first African American woman to head an agency of the federal government. A tireless, inspirational leader, Mary McLeod Bethune devoted her life to promoting black achievement.