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Obama Calls Height A Champion Of ‘Righteous Cause’
Thought leaders, historical figures, politicos, common folk, and the President of the United States gathered today, in tribute to Dr. Dorothy Height. The 98-year-old civil rights icon died earlier this month, having lived through some of the country’s most tumultuous times and fought for the rights we now take for granted.
Video of the president’s eulogy is below. But first, this recap from the Associated Press:
Recognizing his place as the beneficiary of her quiet perseverance, an emotional President Barack Obama eulogized Dorothy Height as a humble champion of civil rights who deserved a seat of honor in American history.
Though Height devoted decades to pursuing “a righteous cause,” Obama said she never cared about getting credit and often worked behind the scenes while the movement’s male leaders earned more attention and fame.
President Barack Obama wipes his eyes, as he attends Dorothy Height's funeral service at the National Cathedral in Washington Thursday, April 29, 2010. From left are, the president, first lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari )
“What she cared about was the cause. The cause of justice, the cause of equality, the cause of opportunity, freedom’s cause,” Obama told hundreds of mourners at the Washington National Cathedral.
Height, who died in Washington last week at the age of 98, led the National Council of Negro Women for decades and marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. She received two of the nation’s highest honors: the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.
Progress on civil rights came slowly, Obama said, but the movement “ultimately made it possible for Michelle and me to be here as president and first lady.”
The Obamas got to know Height during the early days of the 2008 presidential campaign. Following Obama’s victory, Height became a regular at the White House, visiting 21 times. In her final months, she took part in discussions on Obama’s health care reform effort.
In February, as a record-setting blizzard descended on Washington, Height was determined to attend a meeting of African-American leaders on unemployment, Obama said, even though she was in a wheelchair.
She wouldn’t allow “just a bunch of men” to control the meeting, the president said. When Height’s attendance became impossible because cars could not reach her snow-choked driveway, he said, she still sent a message offering her ideas.
Sitting alongside Mrs. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at the service, Obama wiped tears from his eyes as he listened to tributes from Height’s close friends and family. The poet Maya Angelou offered a reading from her wheelchair.
The hundreds of mourners who came to the cathedral to remember Height marked the breadth of her influence — alongside political figures like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were civil rights activist Jesse Jackson and comedian Bill Cosby. Many women in the crowd wore bright, colorful hats, a nod to Height’s trademark attire.
Born in Richmond, Va., in 1912, before women could vote and blacks had equal rights, Height moved with her family to the Pittsburgh area when she was a child. She distinguished herself in the classroom and was accepted to Barnard College, only to be turned away because the school already had reached its quota — two — of black women. She went on to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees from New York University.
In the 1950s and 1960s, she was the leading woman helping King and other activists orchestrate the civil rights movement, often reminding the men not to underestimate their female counterparts.
Obama ordered flags to be flown at half-staff Thursday in Height’s honor.
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THIS MOMENTOUS DAY!
Not one day in anyone’s life is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down’s syndrome child.
Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kindnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconscious example.
Each smallest act of kindness – even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile – reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away.
Likewise, each small meanness, each thoughtless expression of hatred, each envious and bitter act, regardless of how petty, can inspire others, and is therefore the seed that ultimately produces evil fruit, poisoning people whom you have never met and never will.
All human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwined – those dead, those living, those generations yet to come – that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands.
Therefore, after every failure, we are obliged to strive again for success, and when faced with the end of one thing, we must build something new and better in the ashes, just as from pain and grief, we must weave hope, for each of us is a thread critical to the strength – the very survival – of the human tapestry.
Every hour in every life contains such often-unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days for which we, in our dissatisfaction, so often yearn are already with us; all great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in THIS MOMENTOUS DAY! – Rev. H.R. White
Excerpt from Dean Koontz’s book, “From the Corner of His Eye”.
It embodies the idea of how the smallest of acts can have such a profound effect on each of our lives. Go with God, until we see you again, Dorothy Height, thank you.