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12/08/2008 9:55 am

POV

Unsung Civil Rights Hero Opens up on Racism at Barnard, Fighting Alongside Dr. King and What She Wants From Obama

Updated 4/20/2010: Dorothy Height passed away today at 3:14 am at the age of 98. Click here for more information.

Upon her return from India in 1957, Height threw herself back into the civil- and human-rights movements, more often than not taking a leading role. By 1957, Height became president of the NCNW, which led a crusade for black women’s justice as well as strengthening the black family. (She would work there until 1998, when she became its chair and president emerita.) Height also headed the National Council of Negro Women through the civil-rights years and had initially met Martin Luther King Jr., as she remembers, “at his home at their family dinner table as he was deciding whether he’d be a doctor or a minister. Ten years later Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat and I was one of the first people Rosa Parks told her side of the story to. By that time Martin Luther King Jr. became our leader. I had the opportunity to work with Dr. King from that point through the rest of his life. During the 1960s, we worked to get the civil-rights legislation passed. I was the one-woman member in the United Civil Rights Leadership along with Dr. King. Whitney Young, James Farmer, Roy Wilkins and John Lewis.” (The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964.)  

By the 1970s, when she was in her 60s, Height created the Women’s Center for Education and Career Achievement in New York City to help women prepare for entry-level jobs.

“As for the 1980s, I think we were still working on trying to move the civil-rights legislation from legislation to enforcement. That was true when it was passed and, in turn, it’s true today. Many people see affirmative action as a preference for people rather than seeing it as a way of somehow helping to move forward those whom have been held back and who have been denied for so long.”

Today, Dr. Dorothy Height, still with a voice powerful, clear and precise, works on behalf of the homeless and to make our world “a community of equals,” she says. And she has a new dream now – for Barack Obama to carry on not only her mantle, but also the civil-rights pioneers’ collective vision, for a more just society. “His presidency will be better for all people and in a sense for the world,” says Height.  “His presidency is transformational.  I’m really looking forward to January!”