Vision Award

2005 Recipient

2006 Recipient

2007 Nominations

Dorothy I. Height began her career in the 1930s as the assistant director of the Harlem YWCA. She earned the attention of Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of the National Council of Negro Women Inc., during a meeting in which Height escorted First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. She later began serving in dual roles at the YWCA and the NCNW, integrating her background as a social worker and educator and forging bonds between women across racial and class lines in her travels to Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.

In 1947, Height was elected national president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., a position that catapulted her career as a civil rights advocate and propelled the women’s organization to a new level. She was later appointed president of the NCNW in 1957, working closely with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others in almost every major civil and human rights event in the 1960s.

Height established the Bethune Museum and Archives for Black Women, the first institution devoted to the history of black women. She was awarded the Citizens Medal Award from President Ronald Reagan in 1989 and the Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton in 1994. Meharry awarded Height an honorary doctorate in 2000 and named its Vision Award in her honor in 2005. The recipient of the Dorothy I. Height Vision Award in Women’s Health is selected annually as one who has distinguished himself or herself in areas that substantially enhance the health status of women of color in America.