Lessons from Dr. Height

Dr. Dorothy Height, ironically, was laid to rest about a mile from my house. I say it's ironic because I spent many years admiring her from afar (was even blessed enough to meet her), and now I can visit with her whenever I want.

When I learned she was going to be interred at Fort Lincoln Cemetery in a modest, working-class community in Maryland, I proposed to write a story for the civil rights website put together by Content One (formerly Gannett News Service). I assumed she'd be sharing her final resting spot with Washington's African-American glitterati -- perhaps a certain late Supreme Court justice or some famous artist.

Yes, there are luminaries at Fort Lincoln -- such as jazz singer Shirley Horn, who worked with Miles Davis, and Brown University football player "Fritz" Pollard, the first African American to play in the Rose Bowl -- but what some people might find surprising is the modesty of Height's mausoleum slot.

There is no eternal light or towering statue of the woman who favored hats and the color purple. She rests in a far-off outside corner of a mausoleum surrounded by the remains of people whose last names are not Height. She paid about $8,000 for the slot a few years ago.

I think it's cool that it wasn't until she was in her mid 90s that she slowed down enough to think about a permanent resting place. I think it's even cooler that she spent only $8,000, the way a working American might. It shows that marble and glitter and overdone narcissistic memorials weren't on her mind.

Height was one of the "Big Six" organizers of the 1963 March on Washington. She was the only woman, and despite her charm and her smarts, she was often cropped out of photos related to that seminal event. In her 2003 autobiography, Open Wide the Freeedom Gates, she wrote, "But I knew I was there."