FL S0184

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

Authorized by Senate Bill 310 (passed March 2016), which allowed Florida to replace the Kirby Smith statue with a prominent Florida citizen recommended by the Great Floridians Program.

Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955) was born in South Carolina as the first free member of her family after the Civil War and became an educator and civil rights leader.

Founded the Daytona Literary and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in 1904, which grew to 250 students and merged to form Bethune-Cookman College, now approaching 4,000 students.

Served as Director of the Division of Negro Affairs under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and founded the National Council of Negro Women, becoming the highest-ranking African-American woman in the Federal Government.