Dorothy Height

Dorothy I. Height

Born	Dorothy Irene Height (1912-03-24)March 24, 1912 Richmond, Virginia, U.S.
Died	April 20, 2010(2010-04-20) (aged 98) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Occupation	Educator and social activist

Dorothy Irene Height (March 24, 1912 – April 20, 2010), an American administrator and educator, was a civil rights and women's rights activist specifically focused on the issues of African-American women, including unemployment, illiteracy, and voter awareness. She was the president of the National Council of Negro Women for forty years and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.

Dorothy Height was born in Richmond, Virginia. During childhood, she moved with her family to Rankin, Pennsylvania, a steel town in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, where she graduated from Rankin High School in 1929. Height received a scholarship from the Elks, which helped her to attend college. She was admitted to Barnard College in 1929, but upon arrival was denied entrance because the school had an unwritten policy of admitting only two black students per year. She enrolled instead at New York University, earning an undergraduate degree in 1932 and a master's degree in educational psychology the following year. She pursued further postgraduate work at Columbia University and the New York School of Social Work (the predecessor of the Columbia University School of Social Work).