Mary Mcleod Bethune once said, “Without faith, nothing is possible. With it nothing is impossible.” Jesse Owens one said, “We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.”
Jesse and Mary both were influential people. Mary Mcleod Bethune did a lot of amazing things in her life. In 1932 she became a member of Roosevelt’s “Black Cabinet,” sharing the concerns of black people with the Roosevelt administration while also spreading Roosevelt’s message it blacks, who had been normally Republican voters. She was a friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, in 1936 she became the highest ranking African American woman in government when President Franklin Roosevelt named her director of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration. She remained there until 1944.
In 1937, she also organized a conference because of the problems of the Negro and Negro Youth, and fought discrimination and lynching. She was also the first black woman to serve as head of the federal agency. Mary Mcleod Bethune was awarded the Spingarn Medal in 1939 by the NAACP. “The drums of Africa still beat in my heart. They will not let me rest while there is a single Negro boy or girl without a chance to prove his worth.”
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She believed that every African American child should be able to prove their worth. Jesse Owens on the other hand is the best remembered athlete in Olympic history. He was also known for as the man who upset Adolf Hitler, because he not only won four track and field gold medals (the first individual to do so), but setting Olympic records in the process.
In May 1935, during the Big Ten Conference Championships, he tied the world record in the 100 yard dash at 9.4 seconds. He also broke the world records for the broad jump, 220 yard dash, and as well as the 200 yard low hurdles. The amazing part about those records was that they were set after he had fallen down a flight of stairs and was suffering from back pains.
Mary Mcleod Bethune and Jesse Owens were very influential people to learn from. They basically taught that whatever you set to your mind to, you can achieve anything. Mary fought against discrimination, and wanted to help any and every African American child to prove their worth. Jesse Owens said that if you have a dream, you can make that dream become a reality, only if your willing to put in a lot of hard work, discipline, dedication, and determination.
