WPB to Host Black Heritage Stamp Dedication Ceremony on February 8

The 40th stamp in the Black Heritage series honors Dorothy Height (1912–2010), the tireless activist who dedicated her life to fighting for racial and gender equality.

On February 8, West Palm Beach Officer In Charge Robert Weiser will dedicate an enlargement of the Dorothy Height stamp to local Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) officials. The dedication ceremony will take place at 9 a.m. in the Lassiter Student Center at Palm Beach Atlantic University, 901 S Flagler Drive, West Palm Beach. Employees are invited to attend as an off-the-clock activity.

Height was instrumental in furthering the causes of the YWCA nationally, as assistant executive director of the YWCA Harlem and, in 1939, as executive director of the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA, Washington DC. In 1944, Height joined the staff of the YWCA National Board where she worked until 1977, later serving as the first Director of the YWCA Office of Racial Justice.

She became president of the National Council of Negro Women in 1957, serving in that position for forty years and helped organize the March on Washington with Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1963.

President John F. Kennedy named her to his Commission on the Status of Women. She attended the 1963 White House ceremony at which he signed the Equal Pay Act. In 1971, Height helped form the National Women’s Political Caucus.

In 1977, Height officially retired from the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), for which she worked for 40 years. In 1994, President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. A decade later, President George W. Bush presented her with the Congressional Gold Medal.