Using Mary McLeod Bethune’s own words, as well as interviews with Bethune scholars, renowned historians, and those who remember her, the documentary The Negro is Here: The Life and Legacy of Mary McLeod Bethune provides a compelling biography of the illustrious Black educator, civil rights activist, politician, and consummate leader.

The film’s viewers are guided through Bethune’s:
 
- character-building childhood in Mayesville, South Carolina.
- education at the Mayesville Mission School, Scotia Seminary in Concord, North Carolina, and Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois.
- teaching experiences at Haynes School in Augusta, Georgia and Kendall Institute in Sumter, South Carolina.
- marriage to Albertus Bethune and subsequent birth of their son, Albertus, Jr.
initial efforts at building a school in Palatka, Florida.
- establishment of her Daytona, Florida school in 1904 with $1.50 and five little girls, becoming Bethune-Cookman College by 1926 and an accredited four-year college by 1943.
- state and national leadership of the Black Women’s Club movement.
- founding and 14-year leadership of the National Council of Negro Women.
- move to Washington, DC and her rise within the Roosevelt administration to become the only African American to head a New Deal Agency, leader of the Black Cabinet, and influential friend of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.
- final years of active retirement at her home on the campus of Bethune-Cookman College, and her enduring legacy.

Extensive archival imagery provides striking views of the Bethune era, 1875-1955.  A dramatic performance of her speeches and writings, by award-winning actor Be Boyd, brings Bethune’s eloquent, visionary and often confrontational words to life. Boyd was recently awarded the Uta Hagen Award given by the College of Fellows of the American Theatre through the American College Theatre Festival. The speeches and writings performed by Boyd were excerpted from Mary McLeod Bethune: Building a Better World, Essays and Selected Documents by Audrey Thomas McCluskey & Elaine M. Smith.

The Negro Is Here: The Life and Legacy of Mary McLeod Bethune, was produced by Scott Auerbach, Eric Breitenbach and Leonard Lempel; directed by Breitenbach. Auerbach served as the director of photography, and Lempel as primary historian and author of the film’s narration.  A Better World Films, LLC production. Copyright 2026. Total run time: 90 minutes.