Dr. Dorothy Height

For nearly half a century, Dorothy Irene Height has given leadership to the struggle for equality and human rights for all people.  Her life exemplifies her passionate commitment for a just society and her vision of a better world.  

Dorothy Height was born in Richmond, Virginia, March 24, 1912, and educated in the public schools in Rankin, Pennsylvania, a small town near Pittsburgh, where her family moved when she was four. Dorothy Irene Height established herself early as a dedicated student with exceptional oratorical skills.  With a $1,000 scholarship for winning a national oratorical contest sponsored by the Elks and a record of scholastic excellence, she enrolled in New York University and earned the bachelor and master's degrees in four years.  She did further postgraduate work at Columbia University and the New York School of Social Work.

Employed in many capacities by both government and social service associations, she is known primarily by her leadership role with the YWCA and the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW).  While working as a caseworker for the New York Welfare Department, she was the first Black named to deal with the Harlem riots of 1935 and became one of the young leaders of the National Youth Movement of 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.  But it was November 7, 1937 that was the turning point in the life of Dorothy Height who still remembers the day that changed her life.  Mary McLeod Bethune, founder and president of the National Council of Negro Women, noticed the assistant director of the Harlem YWCA who was escorting Eleanor Roosevelt into an NCNW meeting. Height answered Mrs. Bethune's call for help and joined Bethune in her quest for women's rights to full and equal employment, pay and education.  

This was the beginning of her dual role as YWCA staff and NCNW volunteer, integrating her training as a social worker and her commitment to rise above the limitations of race and sex.

Height quickly rose through the ranks of the YWCA, from the Emma Ransom House in Harlem to the Phyllis Wheatley Branch in Washington, D.C.  By 1944 and until 1977, Height was a staff member of the National Board of the YWCA of the USA where she held several leadership positions.  In these positions she assumed responsibility for developing leadership training activities for volunteers and staff as well as programs to promote interracial and ecumenical education.  And in 1965 she inaugurated and became Director of the Center for Racial Justice, a position she held until 1977 when she retired from the National YWCA of the USA.

Height was elected national president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority in 1947 and carried the sorority to a new level of organizational development throughout her term, which ending in 1956. Her leadership training skills, social work background and knowledge of volunteerism benefited the sorority as it moved into a new era of activism on the national and international scenes under Dorothy Height's leadership.  From the presidency of Delta Sigma Theta, Height assumed the presidency of the National Council of Negro Women in 1957 until February 2, 1998.  She is now the Chair and President Emerita.
 
As the fourth elected President of the NCNW, Height led a crusade for justice for Black women and since 1986 worked to strengthen the Black family.  Under the leadership of Height, NCNW achieved tax exempt status; raised funds from thousands of women in support of erecting a statute of Bethune in a federal park; developed several model national and community based programs (ranging from teenage parenting to pig swine "banks" which address hunger in rural areas) that were replicated by other groups; established the Bethune Museum and Archives for Black Women, the first institution devoted to black women's history; and established the Bethune Council House as a national historic site.  In the 1960's Height placed the organization on an action course of issue oriented politics, sponsoring "Wednesdays in Mississippi" when interracial groups of women would help out at Freedom Schools; voter education drives in the North and voter registration drives in the South; and establishing communication between black and white women.

Her international travels and studies throughout Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America began as early as 1937.  As Vice Chair of the United Christian Youth Movement of North America, 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 Height was a YWCA representative to the World Conference of Christian Youth in Amsterdam, Holland. These early international experiences and activities as a leader of the Youth Movement left her with heightened confidence and the conviction that her goals and vision should be broadened to encompass international perspectives.

By the early 1950's, her leadership skills and understanding of the need to move the woman's agenda beyond the boundaries of the United States were evident. While she served as a Y staff member, she represented NCNW at a meeting of the Congress of Women in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in connection with Haiti's bicentennial exposition, and while there arranged for the initiation of the first international chapter of Delta Sigma Theta at the same time.

In 1952 Height served as visiting professor at the University of Delhi, India, in the Delhi School of Social Work, which was founded by the YWCA's of India, Burma, and Ceylon.  Height became known for her internationalism and humanitarianism, and became the Y representative to conduct international studies and travel to expand the work of the YWCA.  In 1958, she was one of a 35-member Town Meeting of the World on a special people-to-people mission to five Latin American countries.  Because of her expertise in training, she was sent to study the training needs of women's organizations in five West African countries.

Dr. Height is known for her extensive international and developmental education work.  She initiated the sole African American private voluntary organization working in African 1975, building on the success of NCNW's domestic projects.  Prior to this success, she carried major leadership training assignments in Asia, Africa, Europe and South America.

These early international and human relations experiences helped prepare her for moving the NCNW agenda into one of cooperation and collaboration in response to the needs of the people, both domestically and internationally.  But her experiences also caught the attention of the human rights community as well as the federal government.  In 1966 Dr. Height served on the Council to the White House Conference "To Fulfill These Rights."   She went to Israel to participate in a 12-day study mission sponsored by the Institute on Human Relations of the American Jewish Committee and attended an Anglo-American Conference on Problems of Minority Integration held by the Ditchley Foundation. In 1974 she was a delegate to the UNESCO Conference on Women and Her Rights held in Kingston, Jamaica; in 1975 participated in the Tribunal at the International Women's Year Conference of the United Nations at Mexico City.  As a result of this experience NCNW under Height's leadership was awarded a grant from USAID to hold a conference for women from the United States, Africa, South America and the Caribbean in Mexico City and to arrange a site visit with rural women in Mississippi. Under the auspices of the United States Information Agency, Height lectured in South Africa after addressing the National Convention of the Black Women's Federation of South Africa near Johannesburg in 1977.

Her distinguished service and contributions to making the world a more just and humane one have earned her over fifty awards and honors from local, state, and national organizations and the federal government.  With Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey she received the John F. Kennedy Memorial Award of the National Council of Jewish Women in 1965; and in 1964 she was awarded the Myrtle Wreath of Achievement by Hadassah. For her contributions in the interfaith, interracial and ecumenical movements for over thirty years she was awarded the Ministerial Interfaith Association Award in 1969; the Lovejoy Award, the highest recognition by the Grand Lodge, I.B.P.O. Elks of the World for outstanding contribution in the human relations in 1968.  In 1974 Ladies Home Journal named her "Woman of the Year" in human rights; and the Congressional Black Caucus presented to her the William L. Dawson Award for "Decades of public service to people of color and particularly women."  
                        
Working closely with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, A. Phillip Randolph and others, Height participated in virtually all major civil and human rights events in the 1960's.  For her tireless efforts on behalf of the less fortunate, President Ronald Reagan presented to her the Citizens Medal Award for distinguished service in 1989, the year she also received the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Freedom Medal by the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute.  Her awards also include the Essence Award, 1987; Stellar Award, 1990; Camille Cosby World of Children Award, 1990; the Caring Award by the Caring Institute, 1989; the Olender Foundation's Generous Heart Award, 1990.

She received the Spingarn Medal from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in July 1993.  She was inducted into the "National Women's Hall of Fame" in October 1993 and President Bill Clinton presented to her the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award in August 1994. On her 92nd birthday, March 24, 2004, President George Bush presented to her the Congressional Gold Medal.

Dr. Height has received over twenty-four honorary degrees, from such institutions as Spelman College, Lincoln University (Pennsylvania), Central State University, and Princeton.

As a result of her extraordinary leadership in advancing women's rights, her dedication to the liberation of Black America and her selfless determination, Height has carried out the dream of her friend and mentor, Mary McLeod Bethune, to leave no one behind.   As a self-help advocate, she has been instrumental in the initiation of NCNW sponsored food drives, child care and housing projects, and career and educational programs that embody the principles of self-reliance.  She is proud that NCNW established and maintains to this day the Fannie Lou Hamer Day Care Center, the only monument to Fannie Lou Hamer in Ruleville, Mississippi.  As a promoter of positive black family life, Height conceived and organized the Black Family Reunion Celebration in 1986 to reinforce the historic strengths and traditional values of the African American family.  Now in its eleventh year in nine cities, the Black Family Reunion Celebration has made a difference in the lives of those fourteen million who have participated.  And so has Dorothy Height during her six decades of public life as dream giver, earth shaker, and crusader for human rights.


Summit Video: Dr. Dorothy Height
From Civil Rights to Silver Rights; Defining Success for Financial Literacy