Mighty Women!

One of the highlights of my career at the Today Show was meeting Dr. Dorothy Height.  Thanks to my dear friend and colleague Chemene (picture here with Maya Angelou), we interviewed her at the Schomburg Center in Harlem.  Dr. Height had the presence of an angel - strong and yet soft spoken and wisely centered.  Born in 1912, Dr. Height survived racism, the great migration of blacks from the South to the North, health issues ( a Dr. predicted that she would die by the age of 16), the Great Depression and went on to become one of the pioneers of the Civil Rights Movement.
  
In a private conversation, Dr. Height shared one story with me that although it is including in her book, "OpenWide the Freedom Gates",  hearing her account of it, really tore at my heart.  She had overcome several setbacks in her childhood and yet, maintained great grades in school and wanted to go to college. With no funding for college, Dr. Height entered an Oratorical contest and won a scholarship. Her choice of schools, because of a recommendation from her brother William, was Barnard college in New York because they had a strong science program and her goal was to become a Doctor.
    
She applied and was accepted to Barnard and received a telegram from the school inviting her to an interview the next day.  She caught a late night train to New York for her 9am interview.  She then told me with a weakened voice that when she got there and upon seeing her, they told her that she could not attend because she was a Negro.  I could see that although she had accomplished great things in her life, that this still hurt her.  She could not fathom the idea of calling home and telling her family that she would not be going to college.  Her sister Jessie lived in Harlem and she went to her house, called their brother William and he suggested with a positive tone, that she try NYU.  That very same day, she ran down to NYU and met with a Dean Ruth Schaeffer with the letter of acceptance from Barnard and used it as leverage to get accepted to NYU.  Dean Schaeffer looked up at her and said, "a girl who makes these kinds of grades doesn't need an application to enroll at NYU."  She filled out a form and was matriculated at NYU.  She then said with a sheepish smile, "Barnard later gave me an honorary degree."  


This lesson about never giving up has never left me - like my mother, I will cherish this woman with every breath of my life.  Another great woman, Maya Angelou wrote the forward in Dr. Height's book and included Mari Evans' poem "I Am A Black Woman:"

I 

am a black woman

tall as a cypress

strong

beyond all definition still 

defying place

and time

and circumstance

assailed

impervious

indestructible

Look

on me and be

renewed