Activist continues work merging social justice, religion
Feb. 22, 2006
NOTE: "Close Up" is a UMNS special report on current issues. Photographs, audio and related reports are available at www.umc.org.
A UMNS Close Up Report By Denise Johnson Stovall*
As the United Methodist Church celebrates the gains made by women in ministry during the past half-century, one laywoman reminds women to never give up the fight for social justice and religious equal rights.
"When I came along, my teacher told me that I didn't need to learn so much about religion," recalled Dorothy I. Height of Washington.
Height took several courses in religion during the 1930s, thinking she might want to work in the church. "But according to (my) religion professor ... the church was not ready for women, and the black church surely was not ready for me."
Ready or not, the church and the larger society were changed for the better by Height's contributions as a leader in the civil rights movement and of the YWCA and National Council of Negro Women. She is a symbol not only for social change but also of the power of one woman to make a difference in the world.
Today, at 93, she is president emerita of the National Council of Negro Women, an umbrella organization comprising civic, church, educational, labor, community and professional groups. It was founded by her mentor, Mary McLeod Bethune, a Methodist laywoman who started United Methodist-related Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Fla.
Height is humble when others describe her legacy as a role model for women in Methodism and women in ministry.
"Dr. Dorothy Height is a rare leader who inspires and grants hope for a better tomorrow," said Trudie K. Reed, president of Bethune-Cookman College.
"As a charismatic and transformative leader, Dr. Height has committed her life to social justice and equity for women and their empowerment. Today, African-American women are proud to assume leadership positions around the world because of the work of Dr. Height and the National Council of Negro Women.
"At Bethune-Cookman College, we are so proud that our historic roots are connected to the National Council of Negro Women," Reed said. "Dr. Height served with our founder, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, in helping to democratize America. Dr. Height continues to grant hope and courage to many of us today who are now charged with continuing a rich legacy of empowering our sisters through education for social change."
Height is acclaimed at other colleges and universities for being a human rights and women's rights activist. A dramatization of her life story, with the stage title "If This Hat Could Talk," was commissioned and performed at Howard University in Washington last summer in her honor.
A passion for service
A native of Richmond, Va., Height grew up in Rankin, Pa., and still belongs to St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Harlem, N.Y., which she has attended since college.
When evaluating her 70 years of service as a United Methodist laywoman, she simply said: "(My) passion was youth, Christian education and human service." She has always "been drawn to Christian education" since the first day she taught Bible stories in Rankin, but she was not encouraged to pursue her dream while in college, she said.
In her book, Open Wide the Freedom Gates: A Memoir, Height wrote: "I believed that (Mrs. Bethune) saw in me all that I could be and decided that she would help me along the way."
In 1937, she was one of 10 young Americans selected as a delegate for the World Conference of the Church on Life and Work. Only two of the U.S. delegates were African American. Even though the United States was racially segregated, she wasn't discouraged but accepted the challenge.
"As a young person, I grew up a Baptist," she said. "The Rev. and Mrs. Benjamin Mays were my chaperones." An acclaimed Baptist minister and mentor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Mays became president of Morehouse College, Atlanta, in 1941. Under his guidance, the young Height soon became vice chairperson of the United Christian Youth Group in North America.
"I learned so much from the different branches of Christendom," Height recalled. "I received a world of experience as a youth dealing with issues of racial and economic justice.
"It was then that I began to realize that I needed to help my people," she continued. "When I grew older, I became more active in programs within the church. I wanted to know what could be done about racial discrimination and lynching in the South."
The bright coed first got her feet wet in social justice issues with the Young Women's Christian Association in New York. Her advocacy of improved conditions for black domestic workers led to her election to national office within the YWCA and to her involvement with that organization's integration policy. But women were discouraged from fighting for equality.
Civil rights struggles
As the fourth president of the National Council of Negro Women, she steered the organization through the civil rights struggles of the 1960s by organizing voter registration in the South, voter education in the North and scholarship programs for student civil rights workers.
Before retiring in 1996, she helped secure funding for a national headquarters for the council in the historic Sears House in Washington. That's where the organization also houses its Dorothy I. Height Leadership Institute. The United Methodist Board of Global Ministries Women's Division provided some of the financial backing with a grant of $100,000.
Theressa Hoover, former top staff executive of the Women's Division, remembers how Height traveled throughout the South - especially Mississippi - to advocate for women's rights.
"Dorothy carried members of the (Women's Division) nominating committee to meetings of the National Council of Negro Women so we would know what United Methodist Women were doing through social action," Hoover said. "So when she asked the Women's Division to contribute to Dr. Bethune's memorial in Washington, we said, 'Of course!'"
In a foreword for Height's Freedom Gates, the late Coretta Scott King wrote, "With her clarity of vision, her eloquent voice for justice and human decency and her courageous and determined leadership, Dr. Dorothy Height has been a great inspiration to me. In the early days of the Civil Rights Movement, she was the only woman in the decision-making councils of the male leadership."
During the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963, Height was the only woman invited on the platform during Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s historic "I Have a Dream" speech, besides Mrs. King.
Height and Mrs. King's friendship endured through the decades, and Height was among the speakers at Mrs. King's funeral in February in Atlanta.
Height's national leadership has been acknowledged by at least six U.S. presidents. She was invited to women's luncheons at the White House with first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. She watched President Dwight Eisenhower sign into law a joint resolution authorizing the National Council of Negro Women to erect a statue in memory of Bethune on public land in Washington D.C. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Height to the President's Commission on the Status and Role of Women.
Two decades later, in 1989, President Ronald Reagan awarded her the Presidential Citizenship Medal at the White House. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994 from President William Clinton. And on March 24, 2004 - her 92nd birthday - she was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President George W. Bush. She accepted that medal "on behalf of millions of people - particularly women - whose work goes unnoticed."
During the 1990s, Height emphasized pulling young people into the National Council of Negro Women to join in fighting drugs, illiteracy and unemployment.
'More than a job'
In 2004, Height noted her pleasure at having lived long enough to see that the majority of students in seminaries are women.
Despite not being able to pursue a career in the church, Height appreciates being encouraged to merge her religious education with her training in social work. She said it taught her a valuable lesson that should be understood by the youth of today.
"I came to understand my life's work as more than a job," she said. She also learned about ecumenical lay ministry after being introduced to the World Council of Churches.
Reflecting on ministries in the 21st century, Height said churches must never stop educating children and youth. That includes reviewing the past as young people prepare for the future.
"They go through open doors, and they do not realize how the door got open." On the other hand, she is glad that the United Methodist Church keeps an unconditional "window of opportunity" open for young people to witness for Christ.
"When you join with other young people that have the same values, you see what your life's work can be like," she said.
"Dorothy Height was not born into a world that gave women their due," wrote Brenda Rhodes Cooper in The Black Family Dinner Quilt Cookbook, a book co-authored with Height in 1993. "She came of age in a time when women were expected to remain in their 'preordained role.'
"She has never lost sight of the fact that generations of women lived, worked and overcame obstacles in America so that she could be who she was destined to be."
*Stovall is a freelance journalist based in Dallas.
News media contact: Linda Green, (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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