Date: April 22, 2010
Contact: Bill Line, 202-619-7400
Contact: Toni Braxton, 202-619-7400
Department of Interior
National Park Service
1100 Ohio Drive, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20242
National Capital Region
Office of Communications
Washington, D.C.
Office of Communications News Release
Washington, D.C. – Dr. Dorothy Irene Height, a revered matriarch of the civil rights movement who fought for more than 70 years for racial justice and the rights of women and who was a friend to the National Park Service (NPS) through her work toward establishing the Mary McLeod Bethune Council House and helping to institutionalize Bethune’s archives, died yesterday at Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C. of natural causes. She was 98.
Dr. Height, along with Mary McLeod Bethune, recognized early on the need to preserve
historical records, especially those pertaining to African American women. The house that
originally served as the headquarters for the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW)
now contains the National Archives for Black Women’s History, started by McLeod Bethune,
and is the only institution in the United States dedicated solely to this goal.
In 1982, through the lobbying of Height and others, Congress designated the Mary McLeod
Bethune Council House as a National Historic Site, which the NPS now manages. The Mary
McLeod Bethune Council House is located at 1318 Vermont Avenue, N.W.
Dr. Height is also credited with
establishing the “Black Family Reunion,” held on the National Mall every year since 1985.
Despite the progress made by then toward racial equality, Dr. Height believed African American families needed to celebrate themselves in a prominent way.
Other Dr. Height/NPS connections include:
- A 51 year association with the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service;
- Dr. Height was a strong advocate for the
building and construction of the Bethune
Memorial statue in Lincoln Park, coming to fruition in 1974;
- As President of the NCNW, she signed several cooperative and general agreements with NPS to promote ongoing park operations and public programming for both National Capital Parks-East and the National Mall and Memorial Parks;
- Dr. Height and the NCNW have been
stakeholders in numerous NPS National Capital Region Strategic Plans;
Each year since 1974, Dr. Height and the NCNW work collaboratively with NPS to produce the annual Bethune Birthday commemoration/celebration in Lincoln Park;
- In 2001 Dr. Height donated her personal papers to the National Archives for Black
Women’s History, which is located on the site of the Mary McLeod Bethune Council
House NHS, a unit of the NPS.
- Dr. Height serves as Chair to the Federal Advisory Commission for the Mary McLeod
Bethune Council House NHS.
A few weeks before she was hospitalized and with unrelenting fervor as she approached her 98th birthday, she met with park officials agreeing to be the Chair of an upcoming NPS November conference sponsored by the Mary McLeod Bethune Council House NHS. This 2010 conference aims to promote the legacy of Mary McLeod Bethune and African American Women as part of a national celebration of the 30th Anniversary for the National Archives for Black Women’s History (NABWH). Dr. Height helped to establish the NABWH in 1979 prior to NPS ownership in 1995.
In August 1963, Dr. Height was on the platform with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., when he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial, and later that year attended a White House ceremony to watch President John F. Kennedy sign the Equal Pay Act, legislation that established equal pay for women in the United States.
- NPS -
