‘Godmother of the civil rights movement’ honored on stamp
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The color of Dorothy Height’s skin limited her ability to participate fully in youth activities at settings such as the Rankin Christian Center and YWCA when growing up in that eastern suburb a century ago.
The longtime advocate for racial and gender equality spent her life successfully breaking down such barriers before her death in 2010. It was only fitting, therefore, that the local unveiling of the U.S. Postal Service stamp commemorating Ms. Height took place Tuesday at that very Rankin Christian Center.
About 100 people treated the stamp ceremony as a festive occasion with music, refreshments and pride in Ms. Height, who lived in Rankin from age 4 until leaving for college in New York City. She would go on to leave a legacy in Washington, D.C., as the woman President Barack Obama called “the godmother of the civil rights movement,” one who sat with and advised multiple presidents and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. while heading the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years.
Despite accomplishments that included key roles in integration of the YWCA nationally as a staff member in the 1940s and leadership of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, Ms. Height has been largely an unsung hero except among those who worked with her. She’s rarely mentioned
among notable figures from the Pittsburgh area or among Rev. King’s allies in transforming America’s racial attitudes.
“I think this stamp is going to help change that. … People will want to know who this person was. She was an inspiration,” said Terre Jones, 72, a McKeesport resident attending the ceremony and leaving it with strips she purchased of the colorful 49-cent Forever stamps bearing Ms. Height’s portrait in a widebrim purple hat and matching dress and pearls.
The postal service actually launched the stamp Feb. 1 as the 40th in its Black Heritage series, putting Ms. Height’s image on equal plane with the likes of Rev. King, Harriet Tubman and Thurgood Marshall.
Ms. Height’s special niche, through the National Council of Negro Women position and other roles, was in serving as a strong voice for both women’s equality and racial justice.
She was active nearly all of her life before dying at age 98, including a 2003 appearance at the Urban League’s national conference in Pittsburgh to receive its Legend Award. She enjoyed being feted so close to Rankin, where she spent time as a youth reading Bible stories to immigrants’ children at the Christian center, back in an era when it still held segregated “Negro days” to keep the races separate.
Denine Hood, a member of the Rankin/Mon Valley/ Pittsburgh chapter of the National Council of Negro Women, knew nothing of Ms. Height while growing up in Braddock. She only became aware of her contributions when seeing an exhibition at Tuskegee University in Alabama decades later while visiting her daughter there. Now Ms. Hood touts Ms. Height widely to other people locally.
“She is a person who believed in opportunity for everyone, that no one should be prohibited from doing anything,” said Ms. Hood, of Homestead. “Now everyone should know that.”