Dorothy Height
Dorothy Height (BA '33, MA '35, HON '75) taught us to fight hard, privilege justice and equality, and see the beauty in every human being.
A leader of the African-American and women's rights movements, she worked alongside prominent civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., and helped organize the historic march on Washington.
After Barnard, having already met its two-Negro-per-year quota, rejected her, Height took the subway down to Washington Square and was admitted to the School of Education that same afternoon.
"From that day forward, I have loved every brick of that university," Height wrote in her memoir, Open Wide the Freedom Gates.
I am the product of many whose lives have touched mine, from the famous, distinguished, and powerful to the little known and the poor.”