Who is Mary McLeod Bethune as noted in the nonfiction book, When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America?

A Black activist, Bethune is one of those who believes that temperance increases support but is also willing to do what she believes is right despite the odds against her. When Bethune desires to go to Africa as a missionary, she realizes she is actually needed in the United States and, armed with one dollar and fifty cents and a strong belief in her own abilities, she sets out to start a girls' school in Daytona, Florida. She does so, selling cakes and pies and then going to philanthropists for support. By age sixty-one, she is heavily involved in several organizations and focuses on "her four passions: race, women, education, and youth." Bethune is credited with bringing those four issues to the forefront of the national political arena with FDR's campaign. Bethune is cited as having the ability to meet opposition and bring it to her way of thinking. She also has a sassy sense of humor that may have made an impression on many. It's noted that when she is called "auntie" by a man after her appointment by FDR, she looks the man over carefully and then asks which of her brothers is his father. Bethune has an interesting attitude regarding integration in that she feels separate but equal to be adequate and, in some ways, preferable. It's noted that she does sometimes allow the separation without the equality, which is seen by others as a fault.