In 1938, Dorothy Height was one of ten young people selected to help Eleanor Roosevelt plan a
World Youth Conference. Through Eleanor Roosevelt, she met Mary McLeod Bethune and became
involved in the National Council of Negro Women.

Also in 1938, Dorothy Height was hired by the YWCA. She worked for better working conditions for
black domestic workers, leading to her election to YWCA national leadership. In her professional
service with the YWCA, she was assistant director of the Emma Ransom House in Harlem, and later
executive director of the Phillis Wheatley House in Washington, DC.

Dorothy Height became national president of Delta Sigma Theta in 1947, after serving for three years
as vice president.

In 1957, Dorothy Height's term as president of Delta Sigma Theta expired, and she was selected as the president of the National Congress of Neighborhood Women, an organization of organizations.
Always as a volunteer, she led NCNW through the civil rights years and into self-help assistance
programs in the 1970s and 1980s. She built up the organization's credibility and fund-raising capacity such that it was able to attract large grants and therefore undertake major projects. She also helped establish a national headquarters building for NCNW.

She was also able to influence the YWCA to be involved in civil rights beginning in the 1960s, and
worked within the YWCA to desegregate all levels of the organization.

Height was one of the few women to participate at the highest levels of the civil rights movement, with
such others as A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, jr., and Whitney Young. At the 1963 March on Washington, she was on the platform when Dr. King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.

Dorothy Height traveled extensively in her various positions, including to India, where she taught for
several months, to Haiti, to England. She served on many commissions and boards connected with
women's and civil rights.

"We are not a problem people; we are a people with problems". We have historic strengths; we have survived because of family." - Dorothy Height In 1986, Dorothy Height became convinced that negative images of black family life was a significant problem, and to address the problem, she founded the annual Black Family Reunion, an annual national festival.

In 1994, President Bill Clinton presented Height with the Medal of Freedom. When Dorothy Height
retired from the presidency of the NCNW, she remained chair and president emerita.