FL H0073

Requests the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress to approve replacing the statue of Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith with a statue of Mary McLeod Bethune in the National Statuary Hall Collection.

Authorizes replacement pursuant to Senate Bill 310 passed in March 2016, which allowed the state to replace the Kirby Smith statue with a prominent Florida citizen recommended by the Great Floridians Program.

Highlights Mary McLeod Bethune's accomplishments including founding the Daytona Literary and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in 1904, which grew to 250 students in 2 years and merged to form Bethune-Cookman College.

Notes Bethune's service as the highest-ranking African-American woman in the Federal Government, directing the Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Bethune-Cookman University continues her legacy with enrollment currently approaching 4,000 students; the Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site was established by the National Park Service in 1995 in Washington, D.C.