Open Wide the Freedom Gates; A Memoir

New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2003. Reprint. Eighth printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xi, [1], 322, [2] pages. Illustrations. Photo Credits. Index. DJ has minor wear and soiling. Minor edge wear. Foreword by Maya Angelou. A heroine of the Civil Rights Movement tells the remarkable story of her life, her work, and what it means to be both black and a woman. Dorothy Height marched at civil rights rallies, sat through tense White House meetings, and witnessed every major victory in the struggle for racial equality. Yet as the sole woman among powerful, charismatic men, someone whose personal ambition was secondary to her passion for her cause, she has received little mainstream recognition--until now. In her memoir, Dr. Height, at ninety-one, reflects on a life of service and leadership. We witness her childhood encounters with racism and the thrill of New York college life during the Harlem Renaissance. We see her protest against lynchings. We sit with her onstage as Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech. We meet people she knew intimately: W. E. B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mary McLeod Bethune, Langston Hughes, and many others. And we watch as she leads the National Council of Negro Women for forty-one years, her diplomatic counsel sought by U. S. Presidents from Eisenhower to Clinton. After the battles of the 1960s, Dr. Height concentrates on troubled black communities, on issues like poverty, teen pregnancy and black family values. In 1994, her efforts are officially recognized. With Rosa Parks, she receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. From Wikipedia: "Dorothy Irene Height (March 24, 1912 April 20, 2010) was an American administrator, educator, and social activist. She was the president of the National Council of Negro Women for forty years, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004....Height started working as a caseworker with the New York City Welfare Department and, at the age of twenty-five, 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, and in 1944 she joined the national staff of the YWCA. In 1957, 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. American leaders regularly took her counsel and Height also encouraged President Dwight D. Eisenhower to desegregate schools and President Lyndon B. Johnson to appoint African American women to positions in government. Height served on a number of committees, including as a consultant on African affairs to the Secretary of State, the President's Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped, and the President's Committee on the Status of Women. In 1974, Height was named to the National Council for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, which published The Belmont Report, a response to the infamous "Tuskegee Syphilis Study" and an international ethical touchstone for researchers to this day.