Like most of you, this morning we learned of the passing of Dorothy Height at age 98 of natural causes in Washington D.C.

Born on March 24, 1912, in Richmond, Virginia, Dorothy Irene Height  grew up in Rankin, Pennsylvania. Winning a national oratorical contest gained her a scholarship to Barnard College, but Height was refused entry because the college had already filled its quota of two black students per year. Height went on to earn her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at New York University, with postgraduate studies in social work.

By 1933 Height was fighting for anti-lynching laws and for other reforms in the U.S. criminal justice system. But it was November 7, 1937 that was the turning point in the activist’s life. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was to attending a meeting of the National Council of Negro Women in New York City. Height, who was the assistant director of the Harlem YWCA was given the job of escorting Mrs. Roosevelt into the meeting. Mary McLeod Bethune, the founder and president of the National Council of Negro Women, noticed Height, and later asked her to help advocate for women’s rights. Height took a volunteer position with the NCNW, and continued to work with the YWCA, creating programs and polices that helped gain equality and advancement for women of color, and working to successfully integrate the facilities nationwide.

In 1947 Height was elected as the national president of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority As she had with the Y and NCNW she moved the sorority into a new era of activism on both the national and international scenes. Her appointment as the president of the National Council of Negro Women ten years later was a perfect fit. For the next 40 years she would oversee causes such as voting rights, poverty, and AIDS. She worked closely with civil rights leaders, participating in most major civil and human rights event in the 1960s (she was the only woman to sit on the platform with Dr. King and other activists during the 1963 March on Washington). Still, The New York Times called her “the unheralded seventh, the leader who was cropped out, figuratively and often literally, of images of the era that contained the “Big Six” civil rights leaders: The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, John Lewis, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney Young.

Height worked simultaneously for all three organizations, retiring from the YWCA in 1977 and from the NCNW in 1998 (at the time of her death she was the council’s president emerita). She has received numerous awards for her tireless efforts, including the Citizens Medal Award from President Ronald Reagan in 1989 and the Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton in 1994. In 2004 Pres. George W. Bush awarded her with the Congressional Gold Medal and she was inducted into the Democracy Hall of Fame. Most recently, Dr. Height served as an adviser to President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.

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