A Brief Biography of Dorothy Height

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Dorothy Height was born in Richmond, Virginia on March 24th, 1912 and died on April 20, 2010 at the age of 98 (Williams, 2013). The racism she witnessed and personally went through as a child encouraged her to become who she grew up to be (Height, 2003). She said “I am the product of many whose lives have touched mine, from the famous, distinguished, and powerful to the little known and the poor” (Height, 2003, p. 467). Dorothy Height was an advocate for women’s rights and civil rights because she heard many cases about African American women being violated, abused, and raped in jails and in public (McGuire, 2010). Height had a dual agenda to end racism and sexism which led her to earn 20 honorary degrees and more than 50 awards in her later life (Crewe, 2013). Dorothy Height was not in the media’s public eye during the Civil Rights Movement but later on she became known.
Dorothy Irene Height was born in Richmond, Virginia on March 24th, 1912 and raised in Pennsylvania. Dorothy’s mother did not make it to many of her school events, which only fueled her to excel in school (White, 1999). She won a $1000 scholarship from Daughter Elk because of her participation in the national oratorical contest on the U.S Constitution and she was the valedictorian of her high school class. Dorothy wanted to go to Barnard in New York but they rejected her because they had already admitted their quota of black students, which happened to be two. She ended up going to New York University where she joined a sorority, Delta Sigma Theta, and became the head of the sorority. She then earned two degrees, a bachelors in education and a masters in psychology within six years (White, 1999). After college, she began her job as a social worker that she receiv...

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...ald Regan honored Dorothy with the Citizens Medal Award for distinguished services. In the same year she received the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Freedom Medal from the Roosevelt Institute. President Bill Clinton presented Height the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award and she was inducted to the “National Women’s Hall of Fame.” President George W. Bush presented her the Congressional Gold Medal on her 92nd birthday (National Council of Negro Women, 2013). In 1994, she receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom recognized all of the efforts she had put in towards the movement (Height, 2003). Due all the awards, Dorothy Height is the last female activist icon of the Civil Rights Movement and started to become a memory of the Civil Rights Movement. Present Obama called Dorothy "the godmother of the civil rights movement and a hero to so many Americans” (Stewart, 2010).

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