FROM THE FIRST LADY

The only Lady on the Stage

By: Mrs. Cathelean Steele, Founder, Justice for Girls

I am blessed that I had the opportunity to meet and converse with Dr. Dorothy Height, a tireless crusader for civil rights and equality for women and African Americans. After earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from New York University she became a leader of the Harlem Young Women’s Christian Association and the United Christian Youth Movement of North America. Dr. Height’s involvement with these organizations were ignited when she was accepted into Barnard College but was denied entry when she went for her interview because they had already filled their quota of two black women.

In the 1950’s and 60’s her involvement in civil rights expanded as she sought to empower and uplift women. Dr. Height was a passionate advocate for equal pay for women, housing, child care programs and educational opportunities.

In 1957 at the age of 25 Dr. Height met First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of the National Council of Negro Women. Dr. Height became the fourth president of this esteemed organization. In her position as president she organized “Wednesdays in Mississippi,” in which black and white women from the North traveled to Mississippi to meet with Southern women in an effort to ease racial tensions and make efforts to bridge the gap between the races. Dr. Height was the first person in the movement to recognize that the problems of equality for White women and African American women were somewhat the same. Her life’s work and her commitment to African American liberation were deeply rooted in the fight for human liberation.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. recognized her work and she became one of the civil rights’ most influential leaders. She was the only woman to serve alongside the Big Six helping to plan the 1963 March on Washington and other major civil rights projects. Dr. King referred to her as the matriarch of the movement and others referred to her as the God Mother of Civil Rights Movement. The press frequently ignored her work with the “Big Six”. However, she would continue her work for African American Rights and Women’s rights regardless of color of their skin.

I read that one of her favorite quotes was written by the 19th century abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who said the three effective ways to fight for justice are to “agitate, agitate, and agitate.” I believe that she lived her life practicing what Douglass preached.

I was reading from the book Gutsy Women and found these words written by Hillary Clinton. “Ms. Height was elegant but with no airs; brilliant without a trace of arrogance; passionate, but never overheated. And though she spent much of her later years sitting down, she was never sitting still. Because when Dorothy Height set her mind to something, there was no stopping her.”

During the 1963 March on Washington, Dr. Dorothy Height was the only lady on the stage. The microphone at the march was dominated by men, but the march might never have happened without Dorothy Height. The question that is always on my mind is simply this, why wasn’t she allowed to speak?