Civil
Rights activist Dorothy Irene Height died on April 20th at the age
of 98. Of prominent African American civil rights allies to the
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community
� Coretta Scott King, Julian Bond, and John Lewis, to name a few-
Height wasn�t profiled and honored enough.
But
this unsung heroine was never concerned about accolades. In an interview
with Gwen Ifill, an African American journalist, and television
newscaster for PBS, about her memoir, �Open Wide the Freedom Gates,�
Height said, �If you worry about who is going to get
credit, you don't get much work done.�
This
grande dame of the civil rights era, however, got a lot of work
done in her lifetime, exhibiting indefatigable energy in championing
for gay civil rights as she did eighty-plus years championing race
and gender civil rights.
As president for forty years (1957- 1997) of the National Council
of Negro Women (NCNW), an organization with the objective of advancing
opportunities and the quality of life for African American women,
their families and communities with programs on issues like voting
rights, poverty and, in later years, AIDS, Height understood that
black families and communities could neither be whole nor healthy
without championing gay civil rights for its LGBTQ community.
For example, in 1996 with Elizabeth Birch, then-president of the
Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Height worked the halls of Congress
when the Employment Non-Discrimination Act faced (ENDA) its first
vote on the Senate floor. Although the Senate rejected ENDA 50-49
Height continued her efforts.
At the height of when African American ministers, especially those
of the civil right era, claiming to have marched and worked with
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, vehemently denounced the gay liberation
struggle as a civil rights issue Height, in her acceptance
speech at the 1997 Human Rights Campaign National Dinner, at
which she was honored for her civil rights work, said: "Civil
rights are civil rights. There are no persons who are not entitled
to their civil rights. � We have to recognize that we have a long
way to go, but we have to go that way together."
Height�s understanding of LGBTQ civil rights derived from her in-fighting
for gender equity with the stalwarts of civil rights movement. With
only black heterosexual men in leadership role during the Movement
both its women and LGBTQ communities were constantly sidelined,
albeit shouldering most of the work. For example, Just
as Bayard Rustin, the architect of the 1963 March on Washington
which catapulted King onto a national stage, didn�t have a speaking
role at the March because of homophobic sentiments, Height, then
president of the National Council of Negro Women, and one of the
March�s chief organizers and a prizewinning orator herself, didn�t
have a speaking role because of sexist attitudes.
In an interview with NPR in 2003 Height commented on the sexism
at the March stating that Mahalia Jackson, the Queen of Gospel Music,
was the only woman heard from the podium that day.
"My being seated there had some very special meaning because
women had been trying to get a woman to speak on the program,"
Height said, "but we were always met by the planners with the
idea that women were represented in all of the different groups,
in the churches, in the synagogues, in the unions, organizations
and the like. So the only voice we heard of a woman was that of
Mahalia Jackson."
Born in 1912 before women had the right to vote in 1920 and when
Jim Crow America was still very much alive Height confronted not
only sexism but she also faced racism. In 1929, at the beginning
of the Great Depression, Height was admitted to Barnard College,
one of the elite Seven Sister private colleges for women. Unbeknownst
to her of the school�s unwritten racial quota policy of only allowing
two black students per academic year, Height, upon arriving on campus
as the third student, was denied entrance.
Bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994, and
the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004, Height was an exemplar
of quiet dignity, prophetic witness, and public service. And it
is her shoulder we all stand on.
In 1947 Height became president of the Delta Theta Sigma Sorority
Inc., a Greek-lettered sorority of African American college-educated
women who perform public service in the African American community.
And her life�s work upheld its motto: �Lifting as We Climb.�
As
we say in the African American community, Height has gone home to
Jesus, but we give thanks for her strength as a fighter for social
justice on which we have leaned on, and for her grace by which we
have grown.
Height was not only a public servant, but she was also one of our
moral leaders.
And
by example, Height has showed us that our social justice work is
recognized best when we shift the paradigm of looking for moral
leadership from outside of ourselves to within ourselves; thus,
realizing we are not only the agents of change in society, but also
the moral leaders we have been looking for.
And for that we give her thanks.
BlackCommentator.com
Editorial Board member, the Rev. Irene Monroe, is a religion columnist,
theologian, and public speaker. She is the Coordinator of the African-American Roundtable of the Center for Lesbian
and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS) at the Pacific School
of Religion. A
native of Brooklyn, Rev. Monroe is a graduate from Wellesley College
and Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University, and served
as a pastor at an African-American church before coming to Harvard
Divinity School for her doctorate as a Ford Fellow. She was recently
named to MSNBC�s list of 10 Black Women You Should Know. Reverend Monroe is the author of Let Your Light Shine Like a Rainbow Always: Meditations on Bible
Prayers for Not�So�Everyday Moments. As an African-American feminist theologian, she speaks for a sector
of society that is frequently invisible. Her website is
irenemonroe.com.
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