She was born a social justice warrior before that descriptive phrase became common. She fought for equal rights for both African Americans and women, was active in the anti-lynching movement and fought for reforms to the criminal justice system. And for decades, Dorothy Height impacted the Civil Rights Movement. She worked for justice and freedom for her gender and her race.
Early Life & Family
Dorothy Irene Height was born on March 24, 1912 in Richmond, Virginia, to a nurse and a contractor. Both her parents, Fannie Burroughs and James Height, had other children from previous marriages. They had each been widowed twice before they married.
In 1916, the family moved north and settled near Pittsburg, in Rankin, Pennsylvania. Dorothy’s mother regularly took part in the Pennsylvania Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs and took Dorothy with her. Dorothy established her “place in the sisterhood” early.
One source reported she had severe asthma and doctors didn’t expect her to live past 16.
Early Education
She excelled as a student in the public, racially integrated schools in Rankin. In high school, she became socially and politically active. She took part in the anti-lynching movement in the 1920s.
Dorothy also joined the Girl Reserve Club in Rankin organized under the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in Pittsburgh. An enthusiastic participant, they soon elected her president of the club. Though Dorothy lobbied for removal of the restrictions, she could not change the central YWCA branch policy that barred African Americans from swimming in the pool.
Her talent for public speaking shone brightly in high school. She won a national oratory competition, which included a $1,000 college scholarship.
She graduated in 1929.
Higher Education
Also in 1929, Barnard College of Columbia University issued her an acceptance letter to the school, but they denied her entrance. They suggested she wait a year and try again. The school had an unwritten policy that allowed only two black students per year and they were “full.”
Instead, she used her scholarship to attend New York University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in education in 1932 and a master’s degree in educational psychology in 1933.
First Job
We have to improve life, not just for those who have the most skills and those who know how to manipulate the system. But also for and with those who often have so much to give but never get the opportunity.”
She became a social worker. Her first job, in 1934, was as a caseworker for the New York City Welfare Department. She left the NYC Welfare Department in the fall of 1937 when she accepted a job as a counselor at the YWCA of New York City, Harlem Branch.
Soon after that, twenty-five-year-old Dorothy met Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune, founder and president of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) at a meeting of the NCNW. Dorothy joined the NCNW. Bethune became her mentor.
YWCA
The following year, Dorothy became Acting Director of the YWCA of New York City’s Emma Ransom House residence. During this time, she was also involved with the United Christian Youth Movement, a group interested in relating faith to real-world problems.
Dorothy went to Washington, DC, in 1939 to be the Executive of the Phyllis Wheatley Branch of the DC YWCA.
She returned to New York in the fall of 1944 when she joined the national staff of the YWCA with “special responsibility” in Interracial Relations. Her work included training activities, writing, and working with the Public Affairs committee on race issues.
The YWCA adopted its Interracial Charter (1946), which promised to work towards an interracial experience within the YWCA, but also to fight against racial injustice.
By 1946, the YWCA elected her the National Interracial Education Secretary for the YWCA, and she led the effort to integrate all the facilities of the agency. Dorothy believed segregation caused prejudice through estrangement. She facilitated meetings, ran workshops, and wrote articles and pamphlets to help white YWCA members overcome their fears and align their activities with the Y’s charter.
Dorothy moved to a position in the Training Services department in 1950 to provide professional training for staff.
More Changes
Dorothy also served as National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority (one of four college sororities for African American women) from 1946 to 1957.
Working with the Black Women’s Federation of South America, she spent the fall of 1952 as visiting professor at the School of Social Work at the University of Delhi, India.
Her mentor, Mary McLeod Bethune, died in 1955.
In 1957, Dorothy became the fourth president of The National Council of Negro Women and held that position until 1998 (forty years). She led the NCNW to voter registration in the South and provide financial aid to several civil rights activists throughout the country.
The Civil Rights Movement
I have been in the proximity of, and threatened by, the Klan; I have been called everything people of color are called; I have been denied admission because of a quota. I’ve had all of that, but I’ve also learned that getting bitter is not the way.” Dorothy Height
Working with both the YWCA and NCNW, Dorothy’s involvement in the Civil Rights Movement ramped up. She was the only female member of the “Civil Rights 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.) She helped organize the August 28, 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. They did not invite Dorothy to give a speech, but she was on the stage when King delivered his famous speech, “I Have a Dream.” Her experience with the leaders of this event she later called an eye-opening experience. The men were happy to include women as part of the human family, but not as leaders of households or the event.
Also in 1963, the growing Civil Rights Movement prompted the Y’s National Board to fund and launch a country-wide Action Program for Integration and Desegregation of Community YWCAs. Dorothy took leave from her position as Associate Director for Training to head this two-year Action Program.
In 1965, the National Board established an Office of Racial Integration (re-named Office of Racial Justice in 1969) as part of the Executive Office. Dorothy became its first director. She monitored 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.
Dorothy was one of the creators and organizers of a group, “Wednesdays in Mississippi,” in 1963. The group brought black and white women from the North and South together to create bridges of understanding across regional, racial, and class lines. She also developed international volunteer programs with the NCNW in Asia, Africa, Europe, and South America.
Late Career
Dorothy joined the fight for women’s rights in 1971, when she helped found the National Women’s Political Caucus with Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, and Betty Friedian.
She served on several committees, including the President’s Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped, and the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women.
They named Dorothy to the National Council for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research in 1974. It published The Belmont Report, a response to the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study.
Retirement
In 1977, Dorothy retired from the YWCA. They elected her as an honorary national board member, a lifetime appointment.
In 1986, Height organized the first Black Family Reunion Celebration. She created the celebration to reinforce the strengths and traditions of the African American family. Since then, this celebration and related events have attracted more than 12 million people.
After holding the position for forty years, Dorothy resigned as president of The National Council of Negro Women in 1998, but she remained the organization’s chair of the board. She turned her 90th birthday celebration into a fundraiser for the NCNW in 2002. Celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey and Don King, contributed to the event.
Awards
Dorothy’s tireless efforts working toward equality for women and for African Americans earned awards and honors given over a half a century.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt honored her with the Freedom from Want Award in 1944.
Barnard College officially apologized in 1980 for having refused her admission to the college fifty-one years earlier, and awarded her their highest honor, the Barnard Medal of Distinction.
In 1989, President Ronald Reagan honored her with the Presidential Citizens Medal Award for distinguished service.
She was given the highest honor awarded by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Spingarn Medal Award in 1993.
On March 24, 2004, her 92nd birthday, President George W. Bush presented Dorothy with the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. They also inducted her into the Democracy Hall of Fame International.
Honorary Degrees
She received about 24 honorary degrees, including New York University; Smith College; Harvard; the Tuskegee Institute; and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. But there was one academic honor, the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree that perhaps meant more than the others when, in 2004, 75 years after turning her away, Barnard College designated her as an honorary graduate.
Death
Though Dorothy protested because she had scheduled speaking engagements, on March 25, 2010, doctors at Howard University Hospital in Washington, DC, admitted her for unspecified reasons. She died on April 20, 2010, at 98.
They held her funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral nine days later. President Barack Obama delivered the eulogy. Former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, among the many celebrities and dignitaries, mourned her.
The Washington Post quoted the Former First Lady as saying, [Dorothy] “understood that women’s rights and civil rights are indivisible. She stood up for the rights of women every chance she had.”
They buried her at Fort Lincoln Cemetery in Colmar Manor, Maryland.
Legacy
Dorothy never married.
I want to be remembered as someone who used herself and anything she could touch to work for justice and freedom. I want to be remembered as one who tried.” Dorothy Height
Popular culture honored her contributions to the nation and the world by including a residence hall named in her honor on TV’s A Different World (1987-1993).
In 1995, the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) headquarters, originally known as the Central National Bank or Apex Building, was renamed the Dorothy I. Height Building.
They published Dorothy’s memoir, Open Wide the Freedom Gates, in 2003.
In 2010, the Dorothy I. Height/Benning Neighborhood Library, a branch of the District of Columbia Public Library system, opened in Benning, a neighborhood in Northeast Washington, DC.
For Black History Month on February 1, 2017, the United States Postal Service issued the Dorothy Height Forever stamp honoring her legacy.
Today, there are many memorial plaques dedicated to Dorothy Height in Washinton DC and Virginia.
Last Thoughts
Greatness is not measured by what a man or woman accomplishes, but by the opposition he or she has overcome to reach his goals.” Dorothy Height
Dorothy Height viewed the problems of equality for women and equality for African Americans as a “whole,” merging the two issues which historically had been viewed as two separate things. She worked tirelessly to mobilize African American women so they could engage in politics at a level on a par with their white counterparts.
And while most of her work was done with an aim of changing things in America, she helped other countries see problems with equality in a more unified way as well.
The biographies I read said little of whatever opposition she had to overcome, but I’d guess she faced a lot. She wanted to be known as someone who tried, but Dorothy Height ranks among the greatest female role-models in history. She did more than try. She made a difference.
References
- NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)
- National Center for Civil and Human Rights Org
- National Council of Negro Women (NCNW).
Image Credits:
Top photo by Schlesinger Library, RIAS, Harvard University, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
Second photo by National Archives and Records Administration, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Third photo by NIH, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fourth photo by John Mercanti, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Final photo by Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons