10 Reasons Dorothy Height Is My She-Ro

1. Dorothy Irene Height was born on March 24, 1912 in Richmond, Virginia and was raised in Rankin, Pennsylvania. Height was admitted to Barnard College in 1929, but was denied entrance because the school had an unwritten policy of admitting only two black students. Instead, she attended at New York University. Height earned a bachelor’s degree in 1932 and a master’s degree in educational psychology in 1933.



2. Height started working as a caseworker with the New York City Welfare Department and, and in 1944 she joined the national staff of the YWCA.



3. When she was 25 she began a career as a civil rights activist when she joined the National Council of Negro Women. She fought for equal rights for both African Americans and women. In 1957, when she was 45, Height was named president of the National Council of Negro Women, a position she held until 1997. During the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Height organized “Wednesdays in Mississippi”, which brought together black and white women from the North and South to create a dialogue of understanding.



4. She also served as National President of Delta Sigma Theta, Sorority Incorporated from 1946-1957. While there she developed leadership training programs and interracial and ecumenical education programs. Height remained active with Delta Sigma Theta Sorority thoughtout her life.


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10 Reasons Marian Wright Edelman Is My She-Ro

1. Marian Wright Edelman was the daughter of a Baptist minister and raised in South Carolina. He died when she was 14, and his last words to her were “don’t let anything get in the way of your education.” She went on to earn her undergraduate degree from Spelman College. While in undergrad, she traveled the world on a Merrill Scholarship and studied in the Soviet Union as a Lisle Fellow. She was active in the Civil Rights Movement and went on to earn her law degree from Yale.

 

2. Edelman became the first black person to be admitted to the Mississippi Bar. She represented activists during the Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964. Then she joined the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund in 1968 and moved to DC. While in DC, she also contributed to Martin Luther King’s Poor People Campaign and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

 

3. Edelman founded the Washington Research Project, a public interest law firm and also became interested in issues related to childhood development and poverty-stricken children.
4. As a result of that interest, in 1973 Edelman founded the Children’s Defense Fund as a voice for poor, minority and disabled children.

 

5. Edelman served on the Board of Trustees of Spelman College, which she chaired from 1976 to 1987. She was the first woman elected by alumni as a member of the Yale University Corporation. She she served in that position from 1971 to 1977.

 

6. She has received over a hundred honorary degrees and many awards including the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize, the Heinz Award, and a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship. In 2000, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award.

 



 

7. If all those accomplishments weren’t enough, Edelman is an accomplished author. Her books include:
   
   • Portrait of Inequality, published in 1980
   • American Children and Families, 1981
   • Families in Peril: An Agenda for Social Change, 1987
   • The Measure of Our Success: A Letter To My Children And Yours, 1992
   • Kids and Guns: A National Disgrace, 1993
   • Guide My Feet, 1995
   • Stand for Children, 1998
   • Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors, 1999
   • The State of America’s Children, 2000
   • I’m Your Child, God, 2002
   • I Can Make a Difference: A Treasury to Inspire Our Children, 2005
   • The Sea Is So Wide and My Boat Is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation, 2008

    

8. She is a board member of the Robin Hood Foundation (funds and supports innovative poverty-fighting organizations in New York City), the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (non-partisan research and policy institute working on federal and state fiscal policies and public programs affecting low- and moderate-income Americans), and the Association to Benefit Children (children’s advocacy group with an array of programs that provide services in education, health, housing, mental health and employment), and is a member of the Selection Committee of the Profiles in Courage Award of the John F. Kennedy Library, the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

9. She is married to Peter Edelman, a Professor at Georgetown Law School. They have three sons, Joshua, Jonah, and Ezra, two granddaughters, Ellika and Zoe, and two grandsons, Elijah and Levi (her husband is Jewish).

 

10. Marian Wright Edelman is my she-ro because she used her father’s lesson that Christianity obligates one to service and works to serve children living in poverty and improve civil rights. But at the same time, she did not sacrifice her own happiness in life – she married and raised a family. She comes from a generation where injustice was all around her, and she raised herself up from her poor, Southern roots to accomplish so much. Now us 20- and 30-somethings should use Edelman as an example of a life where one can advocate for others, build up our communities, without being a martyr to the cause or sacrificing our happiness in the process.