Dorothy Height, One of the leading voices of the Civil Rights Movement has Died

The great Dorothy Height has died. She was 98 years old.

Dorothy was a very strong voice in the civil rights movement and an icon to many of us.

Height, whose activism on behalf of women and minorities dated to the New Deal, led the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years. She continued actively speaking out into her 90s, often getting rousing ovations at events around Washington, where she was immediately recognized by the bright, colorful hats she almost always wore.

She died at Howard University Hospital, where she had been in serious condition for weeks.

In a statement, President Barack Obama called her ''the godmother of the civil rights movement'' and a hero to Americans.

''Dr. Height devoted her life to those struggling for equality ... and served as the only woman at the highest level of the Civil Rights Movement -- witnessing every march and milestone along the way,'' Obama said.

Dorothy was also a strong LGBT supporter

Height, chair and president emerita of the National Council of Negro Women (in a photo here by Michael Collopy), has a history of supporting LGBT rights. For instance, Height and her friend Coretta Scott King, widow of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, were among those LGBT allies who worked the halls of Congress in 1996 with Elizabeth Birch, then-president of the Human Rights Campaign, when the Employment Non-Discrimination Act faced its first vote on the Senate floor. Vice President Al Gore was on standby to cast the deciding vote if necessary – but the Senate rejected ENDA 50-49.

She has accomplish so much and will be greatly missed.

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