Civil- rights leader dies

April 21, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Dorothy Height, the leading female voice of the 1960s civil-rights movement and a participant in historic marches with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others, died Tuesday. She was 98.

Height, whose activism on behalf of women and minorities dated to the New Deal, led the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years. She continued actively speaking out into her 90s, often getting rousing ovations at events around Washington, where she was immediately recognized by the bright, colorful hats she almost always wore.

She died at Howard University Hospital, where she had been in serious condition for weeks.

In a statement, President Barack Obama called her “the godmother of the civil-rights movement” and a hero to Americans.

Height was on the platform at the Lincoln Memorial, sitting only a few feet from King, when he gave his famous “I have a dream” speech in Washington in 1963.

Height became president of the National Council of Negro Women in 1957 and held the post until 1997, when she was 85. She remained chairwoman of the group.

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