You might know about Mary McLeod Bethune, who founded Bethune-Cookman University with $1.50 and five little girls in 1904. You might know about Bethune’s work in President Franklin Roosevelt’s “black cabinet” in the 1930s and ’40s, or her response to the racist policies banning blacks from Daytona’s beaches, to purchase land south of New Smyrna Beach and turn it into a beach blacks could access.

But if you don’t, it’s understandable. Two Daytona State College professors, Eric Breitenbach and Len Lempel, are developing a full-length documentary film about Bethune.  In a year in which a marble statue of Mary McLeod Bethune is expected to be erected in Statuary Hall in the Capitol Building in Washington, the two Daytona State College professors are producing a documentary on the founder of Bethune-Cookman University.

Breitenbach said: “We couldn’t wait any longer. In fact, I think we’ve waited too long already. One or two people we would have liked to have interviewed is difficult to get to right now because of failing health.”