Human rights activist Dorothy Height dies at 98

Dorothy Height, 98 years old, died yesterday of natural causes in Washington after a lifetime devoted to defending the equality of all human beings. She began as an activist for human rights of black people in the thirties, a decade characterized by the law of division between races in the United States. In this environment of segregation, black people could not sit in the same part of the bus or drink from the same fountain as whites did. Dorothy experimented early this racial discrimination when the school administrator forbid her for being the choir director because of the colour of her skin. Some years after, when she tried to pursue her studies at Barnard College -University of Columbia- her request was denied because they had already registered the two people of colour that they were allowed per year.

Dorothy Height emerged as spokeswoman for the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), which she led for more than 40 years. This organization was created in 1935 to protect and promote the rights of African American women. She started remonstrating protests against the pitiful situation of the people of her race, which at that time were working in the jobs that the rest of the society did not want to do.

Always in the background, she took part of several revolts in Harlem (New York) and got First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's support for her organization. In the 50's, she finally ended with segregation in schools.

When Martin Luther King spoke to the audience his speech I Have a Dream in front of Lincoln's statue in Washington on August 28th, 1963, she was sitting in the front row at his left. A few months later she witnessed the signing of the law that ended with inequality promoted by John F. Kennedy, the Equal Pay Act. She was honoured with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994, given by Bill Clinton, and also with the Congressional Gold Medal, granted by George Bush in 2004.

For Height, the only way to advance in human rights and equality of race and gender was constant agitation. Barack Obama said today that she "served as the only woman at the highest level of the civil rights movement -witnessing every March and milestone along the way... And even in the final weeks of her life- a time when anyone else would have enjoyed their well-earned rest, Dr. Height continued her fight to make our nation a more open and inclusive place for people of every race, gender, background and faith." The first black United States President also referred her as "the godmother of the Civil Rights Movement and a hero to many Americans."