She was the first black woman to head a federal agency and worked to see that blacks were integrated into the military. She also served as a consultant on interracial affairs at the charter conference of the United Nations. Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women and was director of Negro Affairs for the National Youth Administration. The fifteenth of seventeen children born to slave parents, she came to have unrestricted access to the White House during Roosevelt’s life.
I admire those who are the first to do anything because the one who goes first endures more opposition than those who follow later. They are pioneers, and they open the way and pay the price for future generations.
Acts 16:15
And when she [Lydia] was baptized along with her household, she earnestly entreated us, saying, If in your opinion I am one really convinced [that Jesus is the Messiah and the Author of salvation] and that I will be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay. And she induced us [to do it].
-From the book T"he Confident Woman Devotional: 365 Daily Devotions" by Joyce Meyer-