Women’s History Month Blog Tour with Dawn McCoy

Celebrate Women in Leadership Series with Dawn McCoy

During the month of March 2010, Dawn McCoy, author of Leadership Building Blocks will highlight great women in leadership during Women’s History Month.

Tee, Thank you for allowing me to be a guest blogger today at RAWSISTAZ. Today, in the Celebrate Women in Leadership series, I want to highlight Dr. Dorothy Height.

On Wednesday, March 24, civil rights icon Dr. Dorothy L. Height celebrated her 98th birthday at a Washington, DC hospital where she was recovering from a brief illness. Interestingly enough, her birthday occurs in Women’s History Month and it is worth noting that she has made contributions to the advances for women of all races and backgrounds by advocating tirelessly.

Known to many as the “godmother of the civil rights movement,” Height has received numerous international honors, including the NAACP Spingarn Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom award, the Congressional Gold Medal, among others. She is the president emerita of the National Council of Negro Women, a position she held for more than fifty years. She is also the primary force for launching the annual Black Family Reunion, a national celebration held on the National Mall in Washington to celebrate African-American family values.

During the civil rights movement, she was the only female frequently identified as an equal among the civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King, Jr., Whitney H. Young, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins and Floyd McKissick.

In 1937, Mary McLeod Bethune who founded the National Council of Negro Women noticed a young Height who was at the time an assistant executive director of the Harlem YWCA. Bethune invited Height to join the cause to advocate for women’s rights for equal pay and education. From 1944 to 1977, Height served on the staff of the National Board of the YWCA of the USA and held several leadership positions, such as director of the National YWCA School for Professional Workers. In 1965, she became director of the Center for Racial Justice.

In 2002, in honor of Height’s 90th birthday, a gathering of friends that included entertainment moguls and civil rights veterans pledged $5 million to pay the mortgage of the NCNW headquarters building located on Pennsylvania Avenue. At an annual fundraising in 2009, she said that “Young people need a sense of strategy. They must learn the big task is to take hold and move … that silence is not the position we need to take. We need to make our voices heard, but we need a sense of timing.

What makes her so profound it that she knows how important it is that young people have a sense of the issues in injustice, how to articulate inequity, and learning to be advocates. Dr. Dorothy Height is a beloved African-American but more importantly and true “sheroe” for her dedication to supporting the development of women.

TOUR GIVEAWAY: Blog visitors who leave comments  OR radio callers with questions for Dawn are eligible to win an autographed copy of Leadership Building Block and a copy of the Effective Community Engagement CD.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dawn McCoy is author of Leadership Building Blocks: An Insider’s Guide to Success. As one of the youngest elected African-American elected to the Sacramento City Unified School Board, McCoy shares seven leadership fundamentals in her book. Inspiring readers to be top in their field, Dawn shares her insights based upon twenty years serving as a nonprofit and government executive.

A motivational speaker, coach, and founder of Flourish Leadership Group, a leadership development and communications firm, Dawn is dedicated to transforming ordinary people into extraordinary leaders. In recent years, she has worked with organizations to develop their vision and create phenomenal results. Dawn has worked with hundreds of individuals to help them capture their spirit of leadership and truly become the effective leaders they were meant to be.

Visit Dawn online at FlourishLeadership.com.

Read an excerpt online and visit the tour schedule at http://bit.ly/LeadershipBuildingBlocks.

*A Tywebbin Blog Tour