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Impact on Daytona Beach Community

McLeod Hospital

As of the early 1900's, Daytona Beach Florida was lacking a hospital that would help people of color. Bethune had the idea to start a hospital after an incident involving one of her students. She was called to the bedside of a young female student who fell ill with acute appendicitis. It was clear that the student needed immediate medical attention, yet there was no local hospital to take her to that would treat black people. Bethune demanded that the white physician at the local hospital help the girl. When Bethune went to visit her student, she was asked to enter through the back door. At the hospital, she found that her student had been neglected, ill-cared for and segregated on an outdoor porch.

Out of this experience, Bethune decided that the black community in Daytona needed a hospital. She found a cabin near the school and through sponsors helping her raise money, she purchased it for five thousand dollars. In 1911, Bethune opened the first black hospital in Daytona, Florida. It started with two beds and within a few years, held twenty. Both white and black physicians worked at the hospital, along with Bethune's student nurses. This hospital went on to save many black lives within the twenty years that it operated. During that time, both black and white people in the community relied on the help from the McLeod hospital. After an explosion at a nearby construction site, the hospital took in injured black workers. The hospital and its nurses were also praised for their efforts with a 1918 influenza outbreak. During this outbreak, the hospital was full and had to overflow into the school's auditorium. In 1931, Daytona' s public hospital, Halifax, agreed to open a separate hospital for people of color. Black people would not fully integrate to the public hospital's main location until the 1960's.