DOROTHY 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.
Height was among the coalition of African American leaders who pushed civil rights to the centre of the American political stage after the second World War, and she was a key figure in the struggles for school desegregation, voting rights, employment opportunities and public accommodations in the 1950s and 1960s.
As a civil rights activist, 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 honour.
In a statement issued by the White House, President Obama called Dr Height “the godmother of the Civil Rights Movement and a hero to so many Americans”.
“Dr Height devoted her life to those struggling for equality... witnessing every march and milestone along the way,” Mr Obama said. “And even in the final weeks of her life – a time when anyone else would have enjoyed their well-earned rest – Dr Height continued her fight to make our nation a more open and inclusive place for people of every race, gender, background and faith.”
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, Height was on the platform with Martin Luther King when he delivered his "I have a dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial. But she would say later she was disappointed that no one advocating women's rights spoke that day at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. – ( LA Times/Washington Postservice)