Five Chairs and a Prayer

In 1904, Mary McLeod Bethune rented a small cottage in Daytona Beach, Florida, and opened a school for Black girls with five students, a dollar and a half in savings, and crates turned upside down for desks. She made ink from elderberries. She stuffed mattresses with Spanish moss gathered from the trees. When families could not afford tuition, she took sweet potatoes instead.…