Dorothy Height
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| Dorothy I. Height | |
 Dorothy Irene Height
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| Born | March 24, 1912 Richmond, Virginia  United States |
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Dorothy Irene Height (born March 24, 1912) is an African American administrator, educator, social activist, and a recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal.
[edit] Biography
Height was born in Richmond, Virginia. At an early age, she moved with her family to Rankin, Pennsylvania. While in high school, Height was awarded a scholarship to Barnard College for her oratory skills; however, upon arrival, she was denied entrance. At the time, Barnard admitted only two African Americans per academic year and Height had arrived after the other two had been admitted. After this disappointment, she subsequently pursued studies at New York University, where she earned her Master's Degree in psychology.
Years later, at its 1980 commencement ceremonies, the Barnard College awarded Height its highest honor, the Barnard Medal of Distinction. According to an article written in the New York Amsterdam News by author Jamal E. Watson, Barnard College also officially apologized to Height for their refusal to admit her into the college.
The musical stageplay If This Hat Could Talk, based on her memoirs Open Wide The Freedom Gates, opened in the summer of 2005 and is currently on tour. It showcases her unique perspective on the civil rights movement and details many of the behind-the-scenes figures/mentors who shaped her life, including Mary McLeod Bethune and Eleanor Roosevelt.
[edit] Career
Height started working as a caseworker with the New York City Welfare Department and, at the age of twenty-five, she began a career as a civil rights activist when she joined the National Council of Negro Women. She fought for equal rights for both African Americans and women, and in 1944 she joined the national staff of the YWCA. She also served as National President of Delta Sigma Theta, Incorporated from 1946-1957. She remains active with Delta Sigma Theta[citation needed]. While there she developed leadership training programs and interracial and ecumenical education programs.
In 1957, Height was named president of the National Council of Negro Women, a position she held until 1997. During the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Height organized "Wednesdays in Mississippi", which brought together black and white women from the North and South to create a dialogue of understanding. American leaders regularly took her counsel, including First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and Height also encouraged President Dwight D. Eisenhower to desegregate schools and President Lyndon B. Johnson to appoint African American women to positions in government. In the mid 1960s, Height wrote a column entitled "A Woman's Word" for the weekly African-American newspaper, the New York Amsterdam News. Her first column appeared in the March 20th, 1965 issue (p. 8).
Height has served on a number of committees, including as a consultant on African affairs to the Secretary of State, the President's Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped, and the President's Committee on the Status of Women. She has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Freedom From Want Award and the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP. She has also been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
In 2004, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President George W. Bush on behalf of the United States Congress.
Dr. Height is currently, at age 96, the Chairperson of the Executive Committee of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the largest civil rights organization in the USA.
[edit] References
- Height, Dorothy. Open Wide the Freedom Gates: A Memoir.
- Tracey A. Fitzgerald, The National Council of Negro Women and the Feminist Movement, 1935-1975, Georgetown University Press, 1985.
- Judith Weisenfeld, "Dorothy Height", Black Women in America: Profiles, MacMillan Library Reference USA, New York, 1999, pp. 128-130.
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