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‘Queen Mother’ of civil rights dies at 98

 
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5:00 P.M. EST April 20, 2010

Dorothy Height 
was a leading voice for human and civil rights and an active member for 
many years at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in New York.  A UMNS 
file photo by John C. Goodwin.
Dorothy Height was a leading voice for human and civil rights and an active member for many years at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in New York. A UMNS file photo by John C. Goodwin.
View in Photo Gallery

When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his historic “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, Dorothy Height was the only woman, besides Mrs. King, invited onto the platform.

When Barack Obama was sworn in as the nation’s first African-American president 46 years later, she was invited onto the platform once again.

“This is real recognition that civil rights was not just what Dr. King dreamed,” she told The New York Times about Obama’s inauguration. “But it took a lot of people a lot of work to make this happen, and they feel part of it.”

Height, a United Methodist who worked tirelessly on behalf of civil rights and equality for women, was one of those people. She died April 20 at Howard University Hospital in Washington at the age of 98.

Blazing the trail

Retired United Methodist Bishop Violet Fisher, 70, said Height was “the queen mother of the civil rights movement,” someone who helped blaze the trail for women like herself.

“I celebrate her heart for justice and mercy and her ability to walk humbly with God,” Fisher declared. “Thanks be to God that she opened the doors, especially to African-American women. I am so grateful that she did not leave the Methodist movement.”

A colleague of King, an adviser to presidents and a friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, Height spent 33 years on the national board of the YWCA and more than 40 years at the helm of the National Council of Negro Women.

She was honored by three U.S. presidents, receiving the Presidential Citizenship Medal from Ronald Reagan in 1989, the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Bill Clinton in 1994 and the Congressional Gold Medal from George W. Bush in 2004.

She was so defined by her stylish hats that a dramatization of her life story, commissioned and performed at Howard University, was entitled “If This Hat Could Talk.” She acquired 36 honorary doctorate degrees and countless awards.

But public recognition of her contribution to the civil rights movement was late in coming.

“As a woman, she was often unnamed, but she was always in the photographs when the civil rights leadership visited the White House,” recalled Peggy Billings. Billings was working for the Women’s Division, United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, when she first met Height in the 1960s.

Height was a brilliant strategist. “She had an incredible capacity for finding solutions and consensus in a group,” Billings said. “It was a great gift of hers.”

Commitment to church

Born on March 24, 1912, Dorothy Irene Height grew up in Rankin, Pa., where her parents were involved in the Baptist church. “As a child I joined the church, and then I became very active in all of the children’s missions—the choir, the Sunday school, every aspect of the church—so that my earliest grounding came in the church,” she said during an interview with United Methodist Communications in 2005.

Dorothy Height, 
circa 1966.  A UMNS photo courtesy of the General Commission on Archives
 and History of The United Methodist Church.
Dorothy Height, circa 1966. A UMNS photo courtesy of the General Commission on Archives and History of The United Methodist Church. View in Photo Gallery

As a college student in New York, she began attending St. Mark’s Methodist Church, leading to her longtime affiliation with The United Methodist Church. That faith, which she attributed to helping her develop a strong sense of self-reliance, stayed with her throughout her life.

“I find through meditation and prayer that there are very few things that I do not find some way to deal with,” she said.

Her mentor in the Methodist Church was Mary McLeod Bethune, a Methodist laywoman who started United Methodist-related Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women—an umbrella organization of civic, church, educational, labor, community and professional groups—and brought Height into the fold.

During the 1960s, as the council’s president, Height helped organize voter registration in the South, voter education in the North and scholarship programs for student civil rights workers. She also tackled issues of poverty as her organization supported free school breakfasts for children, promoted community gardens and advocated for improved housing.

Theressa Hoover, a friend and former top staff executive of the Women’s Division, remembered in an earlier interview how Height traveled throughout the South—especially Mississippi—to advocate for women’s rights.

“Dorothy carried members of the (Women’s Division) nominating committee to meetings of the National Council of Negro Women so we would know what United Methodist Women were doing through social action,” Hoover said.

Inspiration to younger women

Her passion for racial and gender equality inspired younger women. She helped organize the women’s caucus in the National Council of Churches in the 1970s.

Mia Adjali, a retired Women’s Division staff member, has never forgotten the first time she met Height during an assembly of the World Federation of Methodist and Uniting Church Women in Ireland a few decades ago.

“Her presentation was about women and power,” Adjali recalled. “I had probably never really dealt with that concept, of women actually not being afraid of acquiring power or discovering how important it might be to move women towards an equality with men.”

Lois Dauway, who has worked with both United Methodist and ecumenical organizations, said she has counted herself fortunate to “sit at the feet” of the civil rights icon who displayed wisdom and courage in addressing both civil rights and gender justice.

United Methodist Bishop Melvin Talbert, who called her “one of a kind,” remembered Height’s significant contributions as an advocate for women and her work as founder of the Black Family Reunion, which brings black families together for fellowship and empowerment.

“She was not afraid to speak truth to power, but she did it in a very gentle but persuasive fashion,” he said.

Champion of church unity

Height also was considered a champion of church unity.

"We in the church will never forget the essential role her faith played in motivating her lifelong quest on behalf of persons of all ages, races and ethnicities,” said the Rev. Michael Kinnamon, top executive of the National Council of Churches. “She knew that persons of faith can be an irresistible force for justice when we join hearts and hands, and she was a leader in that march throughout most of our lifetimes."

Advancing age did not seem to slow her quest for justice. “I just keep feeling that social justice is not some kind of utopia, I think it’s a positive reality, and we have to work at it,” she said in 2005.

The United Methodist Commission on Religion and Race took note of her continuing contributions to American society, celebrating “the indomitable, faith-filled spirit that led Miss Height to pursue the goal of human rights for all people, even as she approached the century mark.”

*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

Dorothy Height, as president of the National Council of Negro Women, appeared on “Night Call”, a Methodist radio program, in September 1965: “The Negro wants what everyone else wants…civil rights act of 1964…”

Dorothy Height, as president of the National Council of Negro Women, appeared on “Night Call”, a Methodist radio program, in September 1965: “…when you speak of an American, you’re talking about a white citizen…”

Bishop Leontine Kelly: “She was a very outstanding leader of women.”

Bishop Melvin Talbert: “She was a strong advocate for women, especially black women.”

Bishop Violet Fisher: “Her leadership was key in the advancement of women in this denomination.”

Trudie Kibbe Reed, President, Bethune-Cookman University: “She did not let age divide her from work, excitement and the movement.”

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