Located in the heart of Daytona Beach, Florida, Bethune-Cookman College is the result of the tireless efforts of educator, equal rights activist, and political lobbyist Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune. Beginning in 1904, Dr. Bethune opened the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls. The school, which ... was the site of the community's only hospital for Blacks, later merged with Jacksonville's Cookman Institute to become Bethune Cookman College in the mid-1920's. As founder of the National Council of Negro Women and president of the National Association of Colored Women, Dr. Bethune played a major role in the developing national desegregation movement, and became the highest ranking appointee to President Roosevelt's Negro Cabinet.