A Dollar and a Half and a Dream That Wouldn't Die

On October 3, 1904, Mary McLeod Bethune opened the door of a small rented cottage on Oak Street in Daytona Beach, Florida, and welcomed five little girls into her school. The daughter of former slaves, she had one dollar and fifty cents to her name. She split packing crates into desks. She burned twigs into charcoal for pencils. She crushed elderberries to make ink. When she needed mattresses, she stuffed Spanish moss into cotton sacks.

Nobody in Daytona would have wagered a cent on her success. She was a Black woman in the Jim Crow South with no wealthy backers and no building of her own. But Bethune had something the ledger books couldn't measure — a faith that refused to calculate the odds. She went door to door selling sweet potato pies to raise funds. She sang hymns on the steps of resort hotels, passing her hat among tourists. Within two years she had enrolled 250 students. By 1923 her little school merged with Cookman Institute to become Bethune-Cookman College, an institution that has graduated thousands.

Jesus told His disciples that faith the size of a mustard seed could move mountains. Mary McLeod Bethune took Him at His word. She started with a seed so small it fit in the palm of her hand — a dollar fifty, a rented room, and an unshakable trust in the God who multiplies what we offer. The Almighty does not ask us to bring enough. He asks us to bring what we have and believe He will do the rest.