Who Am I?

By  Jessie Mai Mitnick, age 11

1. Former President Barack Obama thought of me as “the Godmother of the civil rights movement.”
2. I was born in Richmond, Virginia, on March 24, 1912.
3. I was raised by my mother, Fanny, who was a nurse, and my father, James, who was a building contractor.
4. As a teenager, I started advocating for voting rights and putting a stop to lynching.
5. I was given a scholarship to Barnard College, but I was not allowed to attend because they would not admit more than two African-American students per year.
6. I received a Bachelor of Science degree in education and a master’s in educational psychology from New York University.
7. I was a journalist, social activist and educator.
8. My first job was as a social worker in Harlem, New York.
9. I was a visiting professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Delhi in India.
10. I was the president of the National Council of Negro Women from 1957 to 1998. With the NCNW, I focused on putting an end to the lynching of African Americans and on fighting inequality within the criminal justice system. In this organization, I also campaigned for voting rights and against poverty and AIDS.
11. In 1971, I founded the National Women’s Political Caucus with Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan and others.
12. I was the first person to highlight the intersection between race and gender, meaning that you can’t separate equality for African Americans and women.
13. I died in Washington, D.C., on April 20, 2010.

Answer: Dorothy Irene Height