Women in the Civil Rights movement are too often overlooked: Dorothy Height

[Captain Hilts]

Even here on DU. On the FDR library website, the photograph of Height with Eleanor Roosevelt labels here as "Mary McLeod Bethune."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/us/21height.html?hpw

Dorothy Height, Largely Unsung Giant of the Civil Rights Era, Dies at 98
By MARGALIT FOX

Dorothy Height, a leader of the African-American and women’s rights movements who was considered both the grande dame of the civil rights era and its unsung heroine, died on Tuesday in Washington. She was 98.

The death, at Howard University Hospital, was announced jointly by the hospital and the National Council of Negro Women, which Ms. Height had led for four decades. A longtime Washington resident, Ms. Height was the council’s president emerita at her death.

One of the last living links to the social activism of the New Deal era, Ms. Height had a career in civil rights that spanned nearly 80 years, from anti-lynching protests in the early 1930s to the inauguration of President Obama in 2009. That the American social landscape looks as it does today owes in no small part to her work.

...

[Captain Hilts]

1. Let's talk about Mary McLeod Bethune for a minute. She's one of THE greatest USians of the 20th

Century, yet her name rarely comes up here. She hung out with Eleanor Roosevelt, Dorothy Height, and started her own university. How cool is that?

Here's a quick primer on her:

http://www.nps.gov/mamc/

By her own words and example, Mary McLeod Bethune demonstrated the value of education, a philosophy of universal love, and the wise and consistent use of political power in striving for racial and gender equality. The 15th of 17 children of former slaves, Bethune grew up amidst poverty and oppression of the Reconstruction South, yet rose to prominence as an educator, presidential advisor, and political activist. Through her own schooling by missionaries in South Carolina, Bethune recognized the importance of education in the emerging struggle for civil rights. In 1904 she founded the Daytona Educational and Industrial School for Negro Girls in Daytona Beach, Florida, which later merged with the Cookman Institute to become Bethune-Cookman College. In 2007, the school became Bethune-Cookman University. Mary McLeod Bethune worked tirelessly to influence legislation affecting African Americans and women and continued to be an important voice for human rights until her death in 1955 at the age of 79.

[Captain Hilts]

2. Someone on DU recently mentioned how folks don't even know how to spell 'Shirley Chisholm' let alone

know what she did. Well, here's a quick run down on her. She's cool!

This list of quotations tell you what you need to know about her:

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/shirley_chisholm.html

Of my two handicaps, being female put many more obstacles in my path than being black.
Shirley Chisholm

Service is the rent that you pay for room on this earth.
Shirley Chisholm

The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says: It's a girl.
Shirley Chisholm

The liberals in the House strongly resemble liberals I have known through the last two decades in the civil rights conflict. When it comes time to show on which side they will be counted, they excuse themselves.
Shirley Chisholm

More at link