This building is significant for its history as the headquarters of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) and as the Washington residence of Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955). Bethune began her career as an educator and founded her own border school for African American girls in 1904, which today is Bethune-Cookman University. She has also held various positions in Civil Rights organizations. In 1935 she became the founding president of the NCNW, which met at her Washington residence in the 1940s. In 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt named her director of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration, making her the highest ranked African American woman in government at that time. From 1940 until her death, Bethune also served as the vice president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons (NAACP). Her Washington residence was added to the National Register in 1982 for its association with Bethune’s activism and the NCNW.