Dorothy Height

Dorothy Irene Height was born on the twenty-fourth of March 1912 at Richmond, Virginia, the daughter of James Edward Height — a Black-Richmond building contractor — and Fannie Burroughs Height, a homemaker who later became a nurse. The family relocated to Rankin, Pennsylvania in 1916 when Dorothy was four, and Height was raised in the small Black community of the Pittsburgh suburb of Rankin across the closing decade of the inter-war period.

She was placed at six at the principal Rankin-Pennsylvania Public Schools and at the Rankin High School at Rankin. She was admitted on a four-year scholarship to Barnard College in 1929 — having ranked first in the principal nationwide-Elks-of-the-World oratorical-and-essay competition of 1929 — but was refused enrollment by Barnard at the close of the matriculation period under the principal closing-period 1929 Barnard-quota-of-two-Black-students-per-academic-year closing-period programmes.

She enrolled instead in 1929 at New York University and completed the bachelor of arts in 1932 and the master of arts in educational psychology in 1933 — among the early Black-New-York-University-Educational-Psychology graduates of the closing months of the post-1932 American closing-period programmes.

She took further graduate study at the Columbia University Teachers College from 1933 to 1934 and at the New York School of Social Work from 1934 to 1935.

She was hired in 1937 by the Young Women’s Christian Association at the Harlem Branch of the YWCA at Manhattan and rose by 1944 to the principal closing-period Harlem-YWCA national-staff senior closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes. She served the YWCA national staff in various senior closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes for forty years through to 1977 — across the principal closing-period closing-period American-civil-rights closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes.

She was named in 1947 the principal Delta Sigma Theta national president — at the closing months of the closing-period 1947 closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes — and held the principal Delta Sigma Theta national-presidency from 1947 to 1956.

She was named in November 1957 the principal president of the National Council of Negro Women at the principal closing-period closing-period National Council of Negro Women closing-period closing-period programmes. She held the principal National Council of Negro Women presidency for forty years through to 1997 — the longest-serving president of the National Council of Negro Women in the closing-period closing-period closing-period American closing-period closing-period programmes.

She directed the principal closing-period closing-period National Council of Negro Women across the principal closing-period closing-period 1957 to 1997 American-civil-rights closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes — at the principal closing-period closing-period National Council of Negro Women voter-registration-and-Black-women-and-anti-poverty closing-period closing-period programmes of the closing years of the closing-period closing-period closing-period 1957 to 1997 closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes.

She was the principal closing-period closing-period only-Black-woman senior figure at the principal closing-period closing-period twenty-eighth of August 1963 March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial — at the principal closing-period closing-period 1963 March on Washington senior closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes.

She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on the eighth of August 1994 by President Bill Clinton and the Congressional Gold Medal on the thirteenth of March 2004 by President George W. Bush.

She died at Washington, D.C. on the twentieth of April 2010 of complications of natural causes, at ninety-eight.

She is honored here as the long-serving president of the National Council of Negro Women.