Sumter Today: A Marble Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Visits Mayesville

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Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune was a fervent educator, humanitarian, civil rights activist, and a South Carolinian.
 
To honor her legacy and impact, a statue of her was commissioned to be placed in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall in February. The statue was done by Nilda Comas.
The three-ton, 11-foot statue was hand-carved out of the last and largest piece of statuary marble from Michelangelo’s mine in Italy, and it is the first state-commissioned statue of a Black person for the Statuary Hall.
 
We stopped by a ceremony on Friday where the statue made a pitstop in Mayesville to learn more about her impact and legacy where it all started.