Civil Rights Champion Dorothy Height Dies

Dr. Dorothy Height is presented with the Congressional Gold Medal during a ceremony in the Rotunda at the Capitol March 24, 2004. (Photo by Stephen Jaffe/AFP/Getty Images)

Civil rights leader Dorothy Height, who led the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years, has died. President Barack Obama called her 'the godmother of the civil rights movement' who witnessed 'every march and milestone along the way.' Height was 98.

In 2006, she spoke on WNYC's 'Studio 360' about hearing Marian Anderson perform on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939:

And the first words that came from her mouth were 'My country 'tis of thee.' There was suddenly a moment of a great spirit and a feeling that this injustice had been recognized and that Marian Anderson had made us all proud to be Americans when she could sing.

As a teenager, Height marched in Times Square to protest lynchings. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees from New York University and did postgraduate work at Columbia University and the New York School of Social Work. Mayor Michael Bloomberg cited her work as a caseworker for the city's welfare department in the 1930's.

She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994.