Civil Rights Champions: Dorothy I. Height

Abstract

Dorothy Height is recognized as one of the most influential women in the modern civil rights movement. Born in 1912, she graduated from Rankin High School in Pennsylvania in 1929 and attended New York University, Columbia University, and the New York School of Social Work. Height began her efforts as a civil rights activist at the age of twenty-five when she joined the National Council of Negro Women. Throughout her life she fought for equal rights for both African Americans and women. During the 1930s she was an activist against lynching and for reforms to the criminal justice system.