HR1207 96TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR1207 LRB096 22236 GRL 41065 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, State Representative Monique D. Davis and the Illinois House of Representatives are saddened to learn of the death of Dorothy Irene Height, who passed away on April 20, 2010; and

WHEREAS, Dorothy Height was born in Richmond, Virginia, on March 24, 1912; she grew up in Rankin, Pennsylvania, where she attended racially integrated schools but felt the lash of racial bigotry early in her life; during elementary school, a music teacher in the mostly white school appointed her student director of the school chorus, but a new principal forbade her to take that position; at the next school assembly, the chorus refused to stand and sing until Ms. Height was reinstated as leader and the principal relented; and

WHEREAS, As a high school senior and her school's valedictorian, Dorothy Height won a national oratorical contest and a $1,000 college scholarship; when the college of her choice, Barnard in New York, informed her that the college already admitted its quota of black students, she instead went to New York University, where she graduated in 3 years and received a master's degree in educational psychology in her 4th year; and

WHEREAS, Dorothy Height began her professional career as a caseworker for the New York City Welfare Department; around this time, she got her start as a civil rights activist through Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Sr., pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, and the pastor's son, Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who later represented Harlem in the U.S. House of Representatives; and

WHEREAS, After attending an international church youth conference in London in the summer of 1937, Dorothy Height returned to New York with the conviction that she needed to operate from a broader base than that of a welfare caseworker; that November, after a visit by Eleanor Roosevelt at the Harlem branch of the YWCA, she quit her job as a welfare caseworker and joined the staff of the Harlem YWCA; she remained a full-time YWCA staffer until 1975; during her time at the YWCA, she was instrumental in bringing about an interracial charter for YWCAs in 1946; and

WHEREAS, In the 1940s, Dorothy Height went to Washington to serve as chief of the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA branch; she joined the staff of the national YWCA board in 1944 and, until 1975, remained on that staff with a variety of responsibilities, including leadership training and interracial and ecumenical education; in 1965, she organized and became the director of the YWCA's Center for Racial Justice, remaining in that position until her retirement from the YWCA board in 1975; she also served as a visiting professor at the Delhi School of Social Work in India and directed studies around the world on issues involving human rights; and

WHEREAS, Dorothy Height was renowned throughout the world for her work in the civil rights movement; in the 1930s, she participated in protests in Harlem; in the 1940s, she lobbied First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt on behalf of civil rights causes; in the 1950s, she prodded President Dwight D. Eisenhower to move more aggressively on school desegregation issues; in the turmoil of the civil rights struggles in the 1960s, she helped orchestrate strategy with various leaders of the civil rights movement, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph, Whitney Young, James Farmer, Bayard Rustin, and John Lewis; in August of 1963, she was on the platform with Martin Luther King Jr. when he delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.; when President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, she was among those invited to the White House to witness the ceremony; she returned to the White House in 1998 for a ceremony marking the 35th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act to hear President Clinton urge the passage of additional laws aimed at equalizing pay for men and women; she was also among the few women to speak at the Million Man March on the Mall in 1995; and

WHEREAS, Dorothy Height served as president of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years until she relinquished the title in 1997; under her leadership, the National Council of Negro Women sponsored voter registration drives and organized an education foundation for student activists who interrupted their education to do civil rights work; the organization operated a program called Wednesdays in Mississippi, which consisted of weekly trips to Mississippi by interracial groups of women to assist at Freedom Schools and voter registration campaigns at great risk to their lives; in the 1970s and 1980s, the council helped organize and operate development projects in African countries and ran a "pig bank" project in rural Mississippi that gave pigs to poor, hungry families so they could raise them and give 2 pigs from subsequent litters back into the bank for another family; and

WHEREAS, Dorothy Height became national president of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority in 1947; she held that position until 1957; she also served on the advisory council of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities and the National Advisory Council on Aging; and

WHEREAS, In 1980, Dorothy Height was chosen to receive Barnard's Medal of Distinction, the highest honor the college can give; in 1994, President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor; on March 24, 2004, she received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest decoration that Congress can bestow; she was also given 36 honorary doctorates from many colleges and universities, including Harvard University and Princeton University; and

WHEREAS, Dorothy Height is survived by her sister, Anthanette Height Aldridge; and

WHEREAS, Dorothy Height will be remembered fondly by her family, friends, and the many people she helped for her incredible courage and her tireless attitude to obtaining equality for every man and woman in our nation and throughout the world; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NINETY-SIXTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we mourn, along with her family and friends, the passing of Dorothy Irene Height; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to the family of Dorothy Height as an expression of our sympathy.