Political India: Engaging America

From The Hindu

Activist Dorothy Height, described by President Obama as the “the godmother of the civil rights movement” passed away at the age of 98 years today after weeks of being in a serious condition. Ms Height, a pioneer of the 1960s movement, had joined historic marches with Martin Luther King Jr. and led the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years.

Ms. Height continued to speak out on racial issues and civil rights even until her 90s. She often got as much recognition for her speeches as for her bright, colourful hats.

Speaking after her passing President Obama was reported as saying, “Dr. Height devoted her life to those struggling for equality ... and served as the only woman at the highest level of the Civil Rights Movement – witnessing every march and milestone along the way.”

He said, “And even in the final weeks of her life – a time when anyone else would have enjoyed their well-earned rest, Dr. Height continued her fight to make our nation a more open and inclusive place for people of every race, gender, background and faith.”

Ms. Height’s civil rights involvement began in 1933 when she took on a leadership role at the United Christian Youth Movement of North America. At that time she devoted herself to fighting the practice of lynching and she also pushed for desegregation of the armed forces.

As a teenager, Ms. Height marched in New York's Times Square shouting, “Stop the lynching.” She was also known for forceful statements urging immediate civil right reform: “If the time is not ripe, we have to ripen the time,” she was known to say, and “agitate, agitate, agitate,” quoting the 19th century abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

In more recent days she had argued that the sense of unity fostered by the 1963 marches had dissipated and in the 1990s civil rights movement was on the defensive with many African-American families still not economically secure.

Ms. Height received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994 from President Bill Clinton.

Labels: civil rights movement, Dorothy Height, Godmother