Civil rights leader Dorothy I. Height dies

Height was president of National Council of Negro Women for 40 years. (Susan Biddle/Post)

Dorothy I. Height, 98, a founding matriarch of the American civil rights movement whose crusade for racial justice and gender equality spanned more than six decades, died early Tuesday morning, a spokesman for Howard University Hospital said. The spokesman, Ron Harris, said Ms. Height died at 3:41 a.m. No cause of death was given.

Height was among the coalition of African American leaders who pushed civil rights to the center of the American political stage after World War II, and she was a key figure in the struggles for school desegregation, voting rights, employment opportunities and public accommodations in the 1950s and 1960s. She was president of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years, relinquishing the title in 1997.