And the civil rights leader Dorothy Height has died at the age of ninety-eight. Height served as president of the National Council of Negro Women for forty years, where she fought for equal rights for both African Americans and women. During the 1960s she organized Wednesdays in Mississippi, which brought together black and white women from the North and South to create a dialogue of understanding. She worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and many other prominent civil rights activists. She helped found the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971. In 2005, Dorothy Height spoke at the public memorial for the civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.

Dorothy Height: “I think it’s up to all of us to know that what Rosa Parks started, what the civil rights movement achieved, was a great deal — we’ve made progress. But we have a long way to go. And we need that same spirit. And each of us, from this celebration, should remember Rosa Parks, and her message would certainly be: 'You are a child of God. You can make a difference.' Thank you.”