Front Line until the End

“I want to meet her once,” I thought in the Summer of 2007 when I found her book in a black neighborhood in New York. She is Dorothy Height who, since the 1940s, had worked for the advancement of black women’s rights in America.

In the spring of 2008, I was granted an interview with the National Council of Negro Women. She was in her office, wearing a dignified suit and a blue hat with a big brim. Chair and President Emerita at the age of 96. When the doors of the office were opened, the line of women coming in to seek her counsel was ceaseless.

It was difficult to reconcile her tender impression with her life marked by constant

struggle. When the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama took the lives of 4 girls, Ms. Height was already working in Alabama at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King. She was there to comfort the mothers of the 4 girls. This was a time when lynching at the hands of white supremacy groups was occurring more than infrequently. The mission of civil rights activists working in the South was wrought by constant danger, as they were targeted especially. “We still had a goal to accomplish. We could not lead a life ruled by fear.

Ms. Height was born in Virginia. She had joined the civil rights movement while working as a welfare representative for the YWCA after attending graduate school. She said that she was very disappointed with the protests following Dr. King’s monumental “I Have a Dream” speech. She can be seen standing at Dr. King’s side, listening attentively. Around her are men, men, men. “There was no one” among the leadership that raised the issue of women’s rights, Ms. Height said. Her first step towards working for women’s rights was from this realization ad sense of duty. Even to this day, the wage disparity between men and women, both blacks and whites, is very large. The highest are white males, and the lowest are black females.

Ms. Height passed away last month at the age of 98. As a leader for women’s rights, the Washington Post said in her obituary, “she did much of her work out of the public spotlight, in quiet meetings and conversations” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/20/AR2010042001287.html). President Obama also added his statement. Even during the short time of the current Obama Administration, Ms. Height had visited the White House 21 times, eventually meeting with the President directly. She was seeking to speed up the reform process.

She said that “if there was one success in her life, it is that she continued to struggle for the same cause.” Anyone with her long list of achievements would have been able to lead a leisurely retirement life. She could have come out to the “public spotlight,” appearing on television programs or giving speeches. But she preferred to be on the front lines, the actual reality of the situation. It was likely this quality that Ms. Height had that explains why she continued to attract the admiration of people.