Johnson: Did you ever hear her call the name of the African race of tribe she belonged to?
Bethune: If so, it has passed out of my memory.
Johnson: Do you remember any words that suggested continuity of any African tradition?
Bethune: No. My mother was very, very, dark with soft, keen features: small of stature. She wasn’t large. I took my robustness from my father. My father wasn’t as strong willed as my mother. He was very kindly disposed, very sympathetic. My mother’s will power and drive gave the impetus that held our household together. The majority in our family married off early.
There were seventeen of us, you know. I had nieces and nephews far older than myself. There were seventeen full sisters and brothers and it took my mother’s spirit to build a home.
Father and my brothers got the logs that built the cabin, the cabin where I was born – I was born in our own home cabin, and on our own soil.
