Existing comment:
Dr. Dorothy Irene Height
Has lived at 700 7th Street, SW since 1983. As President Emmerita of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), she helped acquire their headquarters, the Dorothy I. Height Building at 7th and Pennsylvania Ave, NW, in 2003. In her paid and volunteer activities at the YWCA of USA, NCNW and other organizations, Dr. Height worked with many nationally known civil rights leaders, including her friends and neighbors, Barbara Jordan, Patsy Mink, Molly Yard, and Alexis Herman, who are featured in the adjacent Call Box.
The top photo is of Dorothy Height with children at the Black Family Reunion in 1993 on the National Mall. Dr. Height created these annual reunions in 1986 and they were replicated across the nation, focused on the historic strengths, values and traditions of the family.
The large photo of Dr. Height in plum colored was taken in January, 2009 when she addressed the Southwest Neighborhood Assembly right after the inauguration of President Obama. The 1948 photo of Dorothy Height as President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority is on the bottom left. In the bottom right photo, Dr. Height in turquoise is holding the Congressional Gold Medal, presented to her by President Bush in 2004.
How many leaders did you recognize with Dr. Height in the other photos?
Answers:
Senator Barack Obama, before he was President, at a 2004 meeting with young NCNW women
President Jimmy Carter at a 1980 White House meeting with civil rights leaders. Also pictured are Vernon Jordan, Roslyn Carter, Benjamin Hooks and Coretta Scott King.
Mary McLeod Bethune in 1942 when Dorothy Height was the volunteer Executive Director of the National Council of Negro Women.
Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush, along with Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton, on Air Force One, returning from Coretta Scott King's funeral in 2006.
Eleanor Roosevelt, Katherine Ellickson, Helen Hill Miller and Dr. Margurite Rawalt, at a 1962 meeting of the President's Commission on the Status of Women at Mrs. Roosevelt's Val-Kill Cottage. Dorothy Height and Molly Yard had been invited to the cottage in 1938 to plan the World Youth Conference held at Vassar College.
On the platform with Martin Luther King, Jr. at the 1963 March on Washington in which Dr. King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. The background picture in this collage of photos was taken from that march.
At a 1963 meeting in the White House to welcome Lyndon B. Johnson as the new President. Dr. Height said that President Johnson did more to advance civil rights than any other President.
At President Kennedy's signing of the Equal Pay Act in 1963. In 1961 Kennedy appointed Dr. Height to the President's Commission on the Status of Women.
Theresa A. Jenkins produced this graphic collage with Adobe Photoshop. Dr. Patricia E. Ortman provided artistic consultation and advice. Nearly all the photos were from the National Council of Negro Women. Most are in Open Wide The Freedom Gates: A Memoir by Dorothy Height, 2003. Bené Millinery supplied many of the hats worn by Dr. Height in the photos, including the hat used as the model for the sheet metal rendition on the top of this Call Box, which was fabricated by Atlas Manufacturing Co. |