Title
Honoring the Life and Legacy of Dr. Dorothy I. Height.
Body
WHEREAS, on Tuesday, April 20th, 2010, Dr. Dorothy I. Height, Past President of the National Council of Negro Women, 10th National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and a founding matriarch of the American civil rights movement departed this life as a true public servant dedicated to the issues of racial justice and gender equality; and
WHEREAS, born in Richmond, Virginia on March 24, 1912, Dorothy Irene Height was raised in Rankin, Pennsylvania and as the valedictorian of her integrated high school won a national oratorical contest and $1,000 college scholarship which she used to graduate from New York University ("NYU") in four years with Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Tutorial Psychology; and
WHEREAS, Dr. Height began her professional career as a caseworker with the New York City Welfare Department but, at the age of twenty-five, she became a civil rights activist working with the Reverends Adam Clayton Powell Sr. and Jr. and joined the National Council of Negro Women and was recruited by Mary McLeod Bethune to work at the Harlem Young Women's Christian Association ("YWCA"); and
WHEREAS, in the 1940's, Dr. Height came to Washington, D.C. as the chief of the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA branch and, in 1944, she joined the national YWCA staff where, for approximately 31 years, she developed leadership training and interracial and ecumenical education programs and from 1947 to 1957 served as the 10th National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.; and
WHEREAS, in 1957, Dr. Height was named President of the National Council of Negro Women, a position she held for 40 years, where she established a national reputation as a graceful and insistent voice for civil and women's rights and was often described as the "glue" that held the family of African American civil rights leaders together and during th...
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