President Obama Honors the late Dr. Dorothy I. Height

On Wednesday, December 15, 2010, the President signed into law:
H.R. 6118, which designates the facility of the United States Postal Service located in Washington, D.C., as the
“Dorothy I. Height Post Office;”



President Barack Obama signs H.R. 6118, the “Dorothy Height Bill” in the Oval Office, Dec. 15, 2010. The bill designates the facility of the United States Postal Service located in Washington, D.C., as the “Dorothy I. Height Post Office.”
-----Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

Background:

This bill designates the United States Postal Service located at 2 Massachusetts Avenue, NE, Washington, DC, as the Dorothy I. Height Post Office.

Dr. Dorothy Irene Height was a celebrated civil rights leader and Chair Emerita of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW). While at NCNW, Dr. Height devoted her energies to advancing quality of life issues for African American women and their families, impacting health, education and economic empowerment.

Dr. Height dedicated her life to service and leadership. She was a recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994. She passed away on April 20, 2010, in Washington, DC, and The President and the First Lady attended her funeral, with the President delivering her eulogy.

President Obama Delivers the Eulogy for Dr. Dorothy I. Height at her Funeral

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Dr. Dorothy I. Height's Funeral

US President Barack Obama wipes away a tear as he sits next to First Lady Michelle Obama at the funeral service for Dr. Dorothy Height at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC, April 29, 2010. Height, who led the National Council for Negro Women for four decades, and was present at the key battles for racial equality since the 1930s, died at age 98 after a lifetime devoted to the fight for equality.
----JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

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Funeral Services for Dr. Dorothy I. Height

Dr. Dorothy Height's Funeral is today.
Thursday, April 29
10:00 a.m. — A funeral service will be conducted at Washington National Cathedral and is open to the public. The burial service will follow at Fort Lincoln Cemetery in Maryland.

MEDIA ALERT: It WILL air on C-SPAN 2, beginning at 10 AM EST.
It will also be livestreamed at C-Span.org.
Dr. Height's funeral will also air on TV One at 10AM EST.



Here is her on C-Span's BookTV discussing with Brian Lamb about her autobiography.

Dr. Height talked about her book, Open Wide the Freedom Gates: A Memoir, published by PublicAffairs. Then 91, she had witnessed most of the major events in the African-American struggle for civil rights. She talked about her life work for her cause and about people she knew personally such as W.E.B. DuBois, Eleanor Roosevelt, and many others. She talked about the experience of leading the National Council of Negro Women for forty-one years. Ms. Height received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994.

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
April 26, 2010
Presidential Proclamation -- Death of Dorothy Height

DEATH OF DOROTHY HEIGHT

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

As a mark of respect for the memory of Dorothy Height, I hereby order, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, that, on the day of her interment, the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the White House and upon all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset on such day. I further direct that the flag shall be flown at half-staff for the same period at all United States embassies, legations, consular offices, and other facilities abroad, including all military facilities and naval vessels and stations.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-sixth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand ten, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.

BARACK OBAMA

Funeral Arrangements for Dr. Dorothy I. Height

Funeral Arrangements for Dr. Dorothy I. Height
Courtesy of the National Council of Negro Women
Saturday, April 24, 2010

Funeral services for Dr. Dorothy I. Height, chair and president emerita of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), who passed earlier this week, will take place in Washington, D.C. beginning Tuesday, April 27 and end with funeral services at Washington National Cathedral on Thursday, April 29, according to former U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman, who is overseeing the arrangements.

Burial services will be held at Fort Lincoln Cemetery in Maryland. Dr. Height passed away on Tuesday, April 20, at the age of 98.

Tuesday, April 27
6:00 – 10:00 p.m. --- Dr. Height will lie in repose at the NCNW Dorothy I. Height building for a public viewing.

Wednesday, April 28
2:00 p.m. --- The Delta Sigma Theta Sorority will conduct a public Omega Omega Service at Howard University. Dr. Height served as national president of the sorority in 1947.

7:00 p.m. --- A “Community Celebration of Life” memorial will be held at Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. The memorial is open to the public.

Thursday, April 29

10:00 a.m. --- A funeral service will be conducted at Washington National Cathedral and is open to the public. The burial service will follow at Fort Lincoln Cemetery in Maryland.

Simmie Knox
Dr. Dorothy Height
National Council of Negro Women
Washington, D.C.
oil on linen

Dr. Dorothy Height Has Passed Away at the age of 98

From The Washington Post

Dorothy I. Height, founding matriarch of civil rights movement, dies at 98
By Bart Barnes Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, April 20, 2010; 7:34

Dorothy I. Height, 98, a founding matriarch of the American civil rights movement whose crusade for racial justice and gender equality spanned more than six decades, died early Tuesday morning of natural causes, a spokesperson for the National Council of Negro Women said.

Ms. Height was among the coalition of African American leaders who pushed civil rights to the center of the American political stage after World War II, and she was a key figure in the struggles for school desegregation, voting rights, employment opportunities and public accommodations in the 1950s and 1960s.

Ms. Height was president of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years, relinquishing the title in 1997. The 4 million-member advocacy group consists of 34 national and 250 community-based organizations. It was founded in 1935 by educator Mary McLeod Bethune, who was one of Ms. Height's mentors.

As a civil rights activist, Ms. Height participated in protests in Harlem during the 1930s. In the 1940s, she lobbied first lady Eleanor Roosevelt on behalf of civil rights causes. And in the 1950s, she prodded President Dwight D. Eisenhower to move more aggressively on school desegregation issues. In 1994, Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

"She was a dynamic woman with a resilient spirit, who was a role model for women and men of all faiths, races and perspectives. For her, it wasn't about the many years of her life, but what she did with them," said former U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexis M. Herman, a close friend who has been running day-to-day operations at the National Council.

Herman called Ms. Heights "a national treasure who lived life abundantly. She will be greatly missed, not only by those of us who knew her well, but by the countless beneficiaries of her enduring legacy."

In the turmoil of the civil rights struggles in the 1960s, Ms. Heights helped orchestrate strategy with movement leaders including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph, Whitney Young, James Farmer, Bayard Rustin and John Lewis, who later served as a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia.

Ms. Height was arguably the most influential woman at the top levels of civil rights leadership, but she never drew the major media attention that conferred celebrity and instant recognition on some of the other civil rights leaders of her time.

In August 1963, Ms. Height was on the platform with King when he delivered his "I have a dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial. But she would say later that she was disappointed that no one advocating women's rights spoke that day at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Less than a month later, at King's request, she went to Birmingham, Ala., to minister to the families of four black girls who had died in a church bombing linked to the racial strife that had engulfed the city.

"At every major effort for social progressive change, Dorothy Height has been there," Lewis said in 1997 when Ms. Height announced her retirement as president of the National Council of Negro Women.

Rest of obituary at link above.


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