Dorothy Height was for civil rights, women rights and human rights. She died today, Tuesday, April 20th, in a Washington D.C. hospital. She was 98 years old. She died from natural causes after a long illness. Height was an American, a leader in the African-American community. For more than forty years she was president of the National Council of Negro Women. In the 1950s and 1960s, was listed among the major figures in the struggle for civil rights. She began speaking out for civil rights during her teenage and young adult years in the 1930s, and she continued well in her 90s.

From the Washington Post:

"The late activist C. DeLores Tucker once called Ms. Height an icon to all African-American women. 'I call Rosa Parks the mother of the civil rights movement,.'  Mr.Tucker said in 1997. 'Dorothy Height is the queen.'  Ms. Height was on the platform at the Lincoln Memorial, sitting only a few feet from Dr. Martin Luther  King, when he gave his famous "I have a dream" speech at the March on Washington in 1963. 'He spoke longer than he was supposed to speak,' Height recalled in a 1997 Associated Press interview. But after he was done, it was clear Dr. King's speech would echo for generations, she said, 'because it gripped everybody.' " 

Dorothy Height, R.I.P.

The video was made on July 12, 2008.