Civil Rights Activist Dorothy Height Dies

[jefferson_dem]

Civil Rights Activist Dorothy Height Dies
by Allison Keyes

Legendary civil rights leader Dr. Dorothy Height, who spent most of her life battling for the empowerment of women and African Americans, died Tuesday. She was 98.

A winner of the Congressional Gold Medal, Height had the ear of U.S. presidents from Dwight Eisenhower to Barack Obama.

In 1963, she was the only woman on the speaker’s platform when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have A Dream” speech. But Height she wasn't on the program for that March on Washington – even though she was the nucleus of the meetings held by the mostly male civil rights leaders who planned it. Height told NPR in 2003 the experience was uplifting – even though a gospel singer was the only female heard from the podium that day.

"My being seated there had some very special meaning because women had been trying to get a woman to speak on the program," Height said, "but we were always met by the planners with the idea that women were represented in all of the different groups, in the churches, in the synagogues, in the unions, organizations and the like. So the only voice we heard of a woman was that of Mahalia Jackson."

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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126128076&f=1001&sc=tw&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

[Captain Hilts]

1. Oh dear. A GREAT woman!!!!

Tell Eleanor I said 'hello'!