Biography: Public service and social action are the intertwining strands in Dorothy Height's life. By the age of 14 she was president of the Pennsylvania State Federation of Girls' Clubs. She graduated from New York University in 1924 after three years of study, and received her master's degree in educational psychology the following year. One of the first elected officers of the United Christian Youth Movement and active in the Harlem Christian Youth Council, she participated in a select planning group with Eleanor Roosevelt for the World Youth Congress in 1938. She was an investigator and special investigator for the New York City Department of Welfare and supervisor of a district in Brooklyn. Her long professional affiliation with the YWCA began in 1937 when she became assistant director of the Emma Ransom House in Harlem, and then executive of the Phillis Wheatley YWCA in Washington, D.C. Her involvement in the 1947 YWCA convention led to the adoption of its first interracial charter and she thereafter became director of the YWCA's Center for Racial Justice. Miss Height's affiliation with the NCNW also began in the 1930s and she has been president since 1957. A leader in the civil rights movement, she was a member of the Council for United Civil Rights Leadership, a group which focused on issues of racism and organized the 1963 march on Washington. Ms. Height taught at the Delhi School of Social Work in India in 1952, traveled to South America in 1959 under the auspices of International Seminars, and in the 1960s and 1970s undertook assignments in Africa for the State Department and the Agency for International Developrnent. A recipient of numerous awards, including the Distinguished Service Award from the National Conference on Social Welfare, she has served on numerous boards and commissions, including the President's Commission on the Status of Women.

Description: The Black Women Oral History Project interviewed 72 African American women between 1976 and 1981. With support from the Schlesinger Library, the project recorded a cross section of women who had made significant contributions to American society during the first half of the 20th century. Photograph taken by Judith Sedwick
Repository: Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America.
Collection: Black Women Oral History Project
Research Guide: http://guides.library.harvard.edu/schlesinger_bwohp

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