Mary McLeod Bethune and the Rise of Music Education at the Daytona Normal and Industrial

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 11:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Musicking Normal Schools: Soundings of Capital, Gender, Race in Past, Current, Futures of Teacher Education

Abstract

This paper explores the foundational role of music education in the development of the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute for Girls (now Bethune-Cookman University), founded in 1904 by Mary McLeod Bethune. Starting with only five students and $1.50, Bethune’s school emerged as a beacon for Black education advocacy during the Jim Crow era. Central to this rise was music, which served both educational and strategic purposes—fueling fundraising, community engagement, and institutional legitimacy.
Inspired by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Bethune formed a student choir, training them to perform spirituals and hymns that resonated with audiences across Daytona Beach. These performances proved instrumental in securing donations from White philanthropists and helped publicize the school’s mission. The choir’s growing acclaim paralleled the school’s expansion, setting the foundation for a formal music curriculum and positioning Bethune as the school’s first music educator.
This paper traces the development of music at the normal school through primary sources such as recital-performance programs and newspaper coverage. Annual concerts, performances at civic events, and public recitals helped establish the school’s cultural significance with stakeholders and the community. The performing choir provided a model of music-teacher education centered around embracing traditional plantation melodies and songs that could serve as a replicable teaching model. By 1922, the music department offered structured instruction in vocal and instrumental performance, leading to a Department of Music offering degrees in music education training using the industrial education model, and performance rivaling that of northern conservatories.
The Daytona Institute blended liberal arts ideals with industrial education, the latter adopted partly as a strategy to secure funding from sources like the John F. Slater Fund, which prioritized vocational training for Black students. While Booker T. Washington’s industrial model emphasized manual labor and accommodation to White power structures, Bethune’s approach was more nuanced—using industrial terminology to navigate racial politics while fostering academic, spiritual, and artistic excellence. When applied to the skills of teaching, this provided students with the knowledge and methodology necessary to replicate the Bethune method when they became teachers themselves.
The paper contrasts industrial and liberal-arts models in Black education, demonstrating that both evolved from missionary efforts. Bethune did not strictly separate these philosophies but synthesized them to meet her students’ holistic needs—developing “head, hand, and heart.” Her school offered training in teacher education in the philosophy of a normal school, incorporating economic empowerment through civic and cultural engagement.
Music, from Bethune’s earliest choir for the establishment of a formal music school, served not only as an artform but as a transformative educational and social force specifically directed toward Black girls in the South. It uplifted her students, connected the school to broader communities, and helped establish one of the nation’s HBCUs.

Author

• Roger Anderson, Central State University