HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DR. HEIGHT
BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX
The next few weeks are overflowing with days of significance to women, African
Americans and the United States as a whole: March is Women's History Month; the
anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s death is April 4; the anniversary of
Paul Robesons birth is April 9 and the inimitable Dr. Dorothy Irene Height
celebrates her 90th birthday and decades of service to the world on March 24.
And the National Council of Negro Women -- the organization founded by her
mentor, the visionary Mary McLeod Bethune and now headed by
Dr. Height -- is honoring her legacy in rare form.
The National Council of Negro Womens national headquarters sits on an absolutely
prime piece of real estate in the nations capital at 633
Pennsylvania Ave. NW, which for those of you who know District geography, is a
mere six blocks from the U.S. Capitol and less than 10 from the White House.
Part of NCNW's gift to Dr. Height is the outright ownership of the property at
633 Pennsylvania, which Dr. Height had the foresight to purchase in 1996. Real
estate agents say that property sales are all about location, location, location
but more interesting and certainly equally important than the physical
implications of such a prime spot (its presence on Washington's policy row for
example) are the historical implications of the piece of land on which NCNW
sits.
Mary Kay Ricks brought to popular light the story of a Washington, D.C. slave
escape of 1848 last month in the Washington Post Magazine. For African American
history buffs, the story is not so new, but it remains remarkable especially in
light of NCNW's current presence on Pennsylvania Ave: On April16, one
slaveholder reported that three of his slaves were missing. Other slaveholders
concurred. Ultimately, 77 slaves would turn up missing. But they werent
missing; having sought safe haven in the Underground Railroad network, they were
awaiting a vessel to take them to freedom in the north.
After a month of waiting, a 54-ton ship came to their rescue, cruising down the
Potomac River to its docking point at Seventh Street and Pennsylvania Ave, one
block away from where the National Council of Negro Women, supporter of human
rights, civil rights and women's rights for the world's marginalized
populations, is currently headquartered. Talk about poetic justice. Just a few
steps from the place where Mary and Emily Edmondson fought for freedom by
risking their lives, Dr. Height and the National Council of Negro Women fight
for the freedom of women all over the world.
Most 90 year old women would be content to play a little bridge, travel, and
pontificate, but Dr. Dorothy Height goes to the office every day and spends
hours on the telephone and in meetings, raising money for NCNWs programs that
provide entrepreneurial training, financial literacy, career information, and
educational access to millions of African American women. She still travels the
country, giving speeches and mobilizing women in NCNW chapters around the
country. Wouldn't she rather just take it easy? If you ask her that question,
shell draw herself up elegantly and in a quiet voice let you know that Black
women dont always do what we want to do, but we always do what we have to do.
This phenomenal woman, who often talks about black women's ability to make a way
out of no way, is really a national treasure, a repository of the rich history
of African American womens progress and struggles. But it boxes in Dr. Height
to suggest that she is simply a black women's leader. Her legacy is leadership
in civil rights, women's rights, human rights, and economic development. Her
path has included travel to every continent in the world, and meetings with
every United States President since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. For all the
lofty things she has done, though, she has also traveled to rural Mississippi to
help poor women feed their children through a piggy bank concept she conceived
in the sixties. And while dozens of luminaries sing her praises as she
celebrates her birthday, thousands of women who have been touched by NCNW
programs, starting businesses or making the transition from welfare to work, are
thankful for Dr. Height's role in their lives.
Dr. Height once said, "...Without community service, we would not have a strong
quality of life. It's important to the person who serves as well as the
recipient. It's the way in which we grow and develop." Perhaps it is because
she has selflessly dedicated her life and her work to such service that she is
celebrating her 90th birthday with us this year. That's ninety years of struggle
and success, of rejection and redemption, of sweat and of tears. Happy
Birthday, Dorothy Irene Height!