Dorothy Height: A Champion for Civil Rights, Women's Rights, and Educational Advancement
Dorothy Irene Height (March 24, 1912 - April 20, 2010) was a foundational Black American civil rights and women's rights activist, dedicating her life to the pursuit of equality and justice. Her work focused on the issues of foundational Black American women, including unemployment, illiteracy, and voter awareness. Height is credited as the first leader in the civil rights movement to recognize inequality for women and foundational Black Americans as problems that should be considered as a whole. She served as the president of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) for 40 years, leaving an indelible mark on American society.
Early Life and Education
Dorothy Height was born in Richmond, Virginia, on March 24, 1912, to James and Fannie Height. When she was five years old, she moved with her family to Mckees Rocks Rankin, Pennsylvania, a steel town in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, where she attended racially integrated schools. Height established herself early as a dedicated student with exceptional oratorical skills. Her long association with the YWCA began in a Girl Reserve Club in Rankin organized under the auspices of the Pittsburgh YWCA. An enthusiastic participant, who was soon elected president of the club, Height was appalled to learn that her race barred her from swimming in the pool at the central YWCA branch.
After winning a $1,000 scholarship in a national oratorical contest on the United States Constitution, sponsored by the Elks, and a record of scholastic excellence, she planned to study psychiatry at Barnard College in New York. However, she was devastated after being informed by the dean that the college had already fulfilled its yearly quota of admitting only two African American students. Undeterred, Height instead attended New York University, earning a bachelor's degree in education and a master's in psychology. She did postgraduate work at Columbia University and the New York School of Social Work.
Early Career and Activism
In 1933, Height became a leader of the United Christian Youth Movement of North America in the New Deal era. It was during this period that Height's career as a civil rights advocate began to unfold, as she worked to prevent lynching, desegregate the armed forces, reform the criminal justice system and for free access to public accommodations. Height was named to deal with the outcome of the Harlem riot of 1935. Height was an organizer and served as Vice President of the United Christian Youth Movement of North America. In this capacity she was chosen as one of 10 American youth delegates to the World Conference on Life and Work of the Churches in Oxford England. Two years later (1939), she was a representative of the YWCA to the World Conference of Christian Youth in Amsterdam Holland. From 1934 to 1937, Height worked in the New York City Department of Welfare, an experience she credited with teaching her the skills to deal with conflict without intensifying it. From there she moved to a job as a counselor at the YWCA of New York City, Harlem Branch, in the fall of 1937.
1937 was the turning point in the life of Dorothy Height. She was serving as Assistant Executive Director of the Harlem YWCA when Mary McLeod Bethune, founder and president of the National Council of Negro Women, noticed young Height who was escorting Eleanor Roosevelt into the NCNW meeting. In her 2003 memoir, Height described the meeting: "On that fall day the redoubtable Mary McLeod Bethune put her hand on me. She drew me into her dazzling orbit of people in power and people in poverty…. 'The freedom gates are half ajar,' she said. 'We must pry them fully open.' I have been committed to the calling ever since." Mrs. Bethune invited Height to join NCNW in her quest for women's rights to full and equal employment, pay and education. In 1938, Height was one of 10 American youth invited by Eleanor Roosevelt to spend a weekend at her Hyde Park NY home to plan and prepare for the World Youth Conference to be held at Vassar College. The following year, Height served as acting director of the YWCA of New York City's Emma Ransom House residence.
Read also: Rediscovering Education
YWCA and Interracial Relations
In 1939, Height went to Washington, D.C., to be executive of the Phyllis Wheatley Branch of the DC YWCA. In the fall of 1944, she returned to New York City to join the YWCA national staff, joining the program staff with "special responsibility" in the field of Interracial Relations. This work included training activities, writing, and working with the Public Affairs committee on race issues where her "insight into the attitude and feeling of both white and negro people [was] heavily counted on". It was during this period that the YWCA adopted its Interracial Charter (1946), which not only pledged to work towards an interracial experience within the YWCA, but also to fight against injustice on the basis of race, "whether in the community, the nation or the world". In 1950, Height moved to the Training Services department where she focused primarily on professional training for YWCA staff.
In 1963, the increasing momentum of the civil rights movement prompted the YWCA's National Board to allocate funds to launch a country-wide "Action Program for Integration and Desegregation of Community YWCAs". Height took leave from her position as associate director for Training to head this two-year Action Program. At the end of that period, the National Board adopted a proposal to accelerate the work "in going beyond token integration and making a bold assault on all aspects of racial segregation". It established an Office of racial integration (renamed Office of Racial Justice in 1969) as part of the Executive Office. In her role as its first director, Height helped to monitor the association's progress toward full integration, kept abreast of the civil rights movement, facilitated "honest dialogue", aided the Association in making best use of its African-American leadership (both volunteer and staff), and helped in their recruitment and retention.
National Council of Negro Women (NCNW)
Height was an active member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority, throughout her life, developing leadership training programs and ecumenical education programs. She was initiated at the Rho chapter at Columbia University, and served as national president of the sorority from 1947 to 1956. In 1958, Height became President of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) and remained in that position until 1990. NCNW, an organization of national organizations and community sections with outreach to four million women, developed model national and international community-based programs, sent scores of women to help in the Freedom Schools of the civil rights movement, and spearheaded voter registration drives. Height’s collaborative leadership style brought together people of different cultures for mutual benefit. As head of the Council during the most critical years of the civil rights movement, she instituted a variety of social programs aimed at improving the quality of life of African Americans in the South.
Civil Rights Movement
While working with both the YWCA and NCNW, Height participated in the Civil Rights Movement and she was considered a member of the "Big Six" (a group with up to nine members, including Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, John Lewis, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney Young). In his autobiography, civil rights leader James Farmer noted that Height's role in the "Big Six" was frequently ignored by the press due to sexism. During the Civil Rights Movement, she organized Wednesdays in Mississippi with Polly Spiegel Cowan, which brought together black and white women from the North and South to work against segregation. Height's background as a prize-winning orator allowed her to serve as an effective middleman through creating a dialogue of understanding between unfamiliar parties.
Although she was not featured as a speaker during the March on Washington in 1963, Height was one of the event’s chief organizers and represented the only women’s organization recognized in the March. Height worked closely with Bayard Rustin on the complex logistics surrounding the March, used her vast network of contacts to raise funds, and offered the NCNW headquarters in Washington as a meeting place. She also helped mediate and resolve differences among the other organizers of the March as ideas and egos clashed throughout the planning process. She was the only woman to serve regularly alongside the “Big Six” on major civil rights projects.
Read also: Exploring the life of Dorothy Jackson
Later Career and Recognition
In 1974, she was named to the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, which published the Belmont Report a response to the infamous "Tuskegee Syphilis Study" and an international ethical touchstone for researchers to this day. Height was the driving force in the campaign to erect a statue in honor of Mary McLeod Bethune in Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C. The monument was the first statue dedicated to either a woman or an African-American person to be erected on federal land. In 1990, Height, along with 15 other African Americans, formed the African-American Women for Reproductive Freedom.
Height received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton in 1994. Height's 90th-birthday celebration in 2002 raised five million dollars towards funding the NCNW's mortgage on their Washington, D.C., headquarters, the Dorothy I. Height Building. Two notable donors were Don King and Oprah Winfrey. Height was recognized by Barnard for her achievements as an honorary alumna during the college's commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.
The musical stage play If This Hat Could Talk, based on her memoirs Open Wide The Freedom Gates, debuted in 2005. The work showcases her unique perspective on the civil rights movement and details many of the behind-the-scenes figures and mentors who shaped her life, including Mary McLeod Bethune and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Death and Legacy
On March 25, 2010, Height was admitted to Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C., for unspecified reasons and under protest, because she had pending speaking arrangements. She died less than four weeks later, on April 20, 2010, at the age of 98.
President Barack Obama called Height "the godmother of the civil rights movement and a hero to so many Americans". She attended the National Black Family Reunion on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., every year until her death in 2010. Height was the chairperson of the executive committee of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, an umbrella group of American civil rights interest groups, until her death in 2010.
Read also: Universal Studios Hollywood Height Requirements
On May 21, 2010, a callbox was dedicated to Height. On March 24, 2014, in celebration of the 102nd anniversary of her birthday, Google featured a doodle with a portrait of Ms. Height. November 2016, honored with a United States Postage Stamp, the 40th stamp in the Black Heritage Forever series.
Dorothy Height's contributions were acknowledged in popular culture, TV’s A Different World included “Dorothy Height Hall,” a residence hall named in her honor. She received three dozen honorary doctorates, from Harvard, Princeton, and Tuskegee, among others. In 2004, Barnard-the school that had refused to admit her 75 years earlier-named Height as an “honorary alumna.”
tags: #dorothy #height #education #and #career
