Committed to Serving the Community
​Our mission is to educate, empower, and advocate for women of African descent,
​their families, and the communities we serve.

The National Council of Negro Women was founded by Mary McLeod Bethune in 1935 to give African American women a collective national voice. NCNW is a volunteer organization of organizations. We serve as a clearinghouse – facilitating networking and coalition-building, and advocating the use of collective power on issues affecting women, their families and communities. Today, NCNW includes local and state community-based sections, university/collegiate sections, youth sections, Life Member guilds, and organizational affiliates as well as individual members. Through our members and member organizations, African American women and men who are associate members contribute to strategies to resolve national and international issues of human rights, education, social welfare and economic well-being.

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Mary McLeod Bethune's Legacy

I LEAVE YOU LOVE. Love builds. It is positive and helpful. It is more beneficial than hate. 

I LEAVE YOU HOPE. The Negro's growth will be great in the years to come. Yesterday, our ancestors endured the degradation of slavery, yet they retained their dignity. 

I LEAVE YOU THE CHALLENGE OF DEVELOPING CONFIDENCE IN ONE ANOTHER. As long as Negroes are hemmed into racial blocks by prejudice and pressure, it will be necessary for them to band together for economic betterment. 

 I LEAVE YOU A THIRST FOR EDUCATION. Knowledge is the prime need of the hour. 

I LEAVE YOU RESPECT FOR THE USE OF POWER. We live in a world which respects power above all things. Power, intelligently directed, can lead to more freedom. Unwisely directed, it can be a dreadful, destructive force.

I LEAVE YOU FAITH. Faith is the first factor in a life devoted to service. Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible. Faith in God is the greatest power, but great, too, is faith in oneself. 

I LEAVE YOU RACIAL DIGNITY. I want Negroes to maintain their human dignity at all costs. We, as Negroes, must recognize that we are the custodians as well as the heirs of a great civilization.
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I LEAVE YOU A DESIRE TO LIVE HARMONIOUSLY WITH YOUR FELLOW MEN. The problem of color is worldwide. It is found in Africa and Asia, Europe and South America. I appeal to American Negroes -- North, South, East and West -- to recognize their common problems and unite to solve them.

I LEAVE YOU FINALLY A RESPONSIBILITY TO OUR YOUNG PEOPLE. The world around us really belongs to youth, for youth will take over its future management. Our children must never lose their zeal for building a better world.

"Believe in yourself, learn and never stop wanting to build a better world."
-Mary McLeod Bethune

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