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Overview
After the fierce battles of the 1960s, Dr. Height concentrates on troubled black communities, on issues like rural poverty, teen pregnancy and black family values. In 1994, her efforts are officially recognized. Along with Rosa Parks, she receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781586482862 |
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Publisher: | PublicAffairs |
Publication date: | 01/26/2005 |
Pages: | 344 |
Sales rank: | 725,760 |
Product dimensions: | 5.45(w) x 8.45(h) x 1.75(d) |
Age Range: | 14 - 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
In
November 1937, one month after I began working at the Harlem YWCA, I met Mary
McLeod Bethune and Eleanor Roosevelt on the same day. Mrs. Bethune was hosting a
meeting of the National Council of Negro Women, which she had founded two years
before. Mrs. Roosevelt, America's First Lady, was to speak. As the newest member
of the YWCA staff, I was assigned to greet Mrs. Roosevelt and escort her to the
meeting.
I alerted the receptionists at the two main doors to let me know
immediately when Mrs. Roosevelt arrived. We were very excited, and each minute
anticipating her arrival seemed like an eternity. Then, all of a sudden, one of
the janitors ran up. Mrs. Roosevelt had entered through the service entrance and
was making her own way toward the auditorium.
I saw my little job going
up in smoke. Greeting the First Lady was my only assignment, and I had muffed
it. Who would have thought that Mrs. Roosevelt would park her own car on a
Harlem street and come through the service entrance?
I intercepted her
just before she got to the auditorium. I caught my breath, greeted her warmly,
and escorted her inside.
Mrs. Roosevelt gave an exciting speech. She
wanted to get to Hyde Park before dark, but Mrs. Bethune persuaded her to stay
long enough for the women to serenade her with "Let Me Call You
Sweetheart."
As Mrs. Roosevelt gathered her things, Mrs. Bethune turned
to me.
"What is your name?" she asked.
"Dorothy Height," I
whispered.
"I want to talk to you," she said. "We need you."
I
escorted Mrs. Roosevelt to her car--properly, this time--and waved goodbye. By
the time I returned, Mrs. Bethune had already appointed me to the Resolutions
Committee of the National Council of Negro Women.
On that fall day, the
redoubtable Mary McLeod Bethune put her hand on me. She drew me into her
dazzling orbit of people in power and people in poverty. I remember Mrs. Bethune
made her fingers into a fist to illustrate for the women the significance of
working together to eliminate injustice. "The freedom gates are half ajar," she
said. "We must pry them fully open."
I have been committed to the calling
ever since.