About This Stamp
The 40th stamp in the Black Heritage series honors Dorothy Height (1912–2010), the tireless activist who dedicated her life to fighting for racial and gender equality. Although she rarely gained the recognition granted her male contemporaries, she became one of the most influential civil rights leaders of the 20th century.
The stamp features artist Thomas Blackshear II’s gouache and acrylics on board portrait of Height. The painting is based on a photograph shot by Lateef Mangum in 2009.
In 1963, the Height-led National Council of Negro Women joined the Council for United Civil Rights Leadership. Height was an architect of the August 1963 March on Washington, where she shared the stage with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., when he gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, but unlike several of her male colleagues, Height did not speak at the landmark event. It was Height, however, who pushed to include a voice of youth like John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and insisted on no time limits for King’s speech.
The need for gender equality was important to Height, who fought for the rights of women, particularly women of color. President John F. Kennedy named her to his Commission on the Status of Women (which was chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt); she attended the 1963 White House ceremony at which he signed the Equal Pay Act. In 1971, she helped form the National Women’s Political Caucus.
In 1977, Height officially retired from the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), for which she worked for 40 years. In addition to numerous honorary degrees, Height received the nation’s two highest civilian honors. In 1994, President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. A decade later, President George W. Bush presented her with the Congressional Gold Medal. In 2009, she was a guest of Barack Obama when he was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States.
Art director Derry Noyes designed the stamp.
The Dorothy Height stamp was issued as a Forever® stamp. This Forever stamp will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce price.
Stamp Art Director, Designer, and Typographer
Derry Noyes
For more than 40 years Derry Noyes has designed and provided art direction for close to 800 United States postage stamps and stamp products. She holds a bachelor of arts degree from Hampshire College and a master of fine arts degree from Yale University.
Noyes worked as a graphics designer at Beveridge and Associates, a Washington, D.C., firm, until 1979 when she established her own design firm, Derry Noyes Graphics. Her clients have included museums, corporations, foundations, and architectural and educational institutions. Her work has been honored by American Illustration, the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington, Communication Arts, Critique magazine, Graphis, Creativity International, and the Society of Illustrators.
Before becoming an art director for the U.S. Postal Service, she served as a member of the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee from 1981 to 1983.
Noyes is a resident of Washington, D.C.
Stamp Artist
Thomas Blackshear II
Thomas Blackshear II was born in Texas and grew up in Georgia. He pursued his interest in art—“Drawing was all I ever wanted to do,” he says—throughout high school. After graduating from the American Academy of Art in Chicago in 1977, he went to work for Hallmark Cards, where he met and served as an apprentice to illustrator Mark English. In 1980, Blackshear became head illustrator for Godbold/Richter Studios. He began his freelance career in 1982.
Known for his dramatic lighting and sensitivity to mood, Blackshear has produced illustrations for stamps, posters, collectors’ plates, magazines, greeting cards, calendars, books, and advertising. His clients have included Anheuser-Busch, Disney Pictures, Coca-Cola, Jim Henson Studios, Lee Jeans, George Lucas Studios, Milton Bradley, Seven-Up, and Universal Studios.
In 2006, Blackshear’s art was exhibited in Rome in a show sponsored by the Vatican. Known for his best-selling designs for figurines in the Thomas Blackshear’s Ebony Visions collection, he also created the artwork for the “Master Place” collection for DaySpring Cards.
Blackshear’s numerous stamp designs for the U.S. Postal Service® include five stamps in the Black Heritage series, most recently the Dorothy Height stamp (2017). In addition, his artwork has been featured on more than a dozen stamps commemorating Classic Films (1990), Jazz: Legends of American Music series (1995), Classic Movie Monsters (1997), James Baldwin (2004), Mother Teresa (2010), Rosa Parks (2013), and Chief Standing Bear (2023).
Twenty-eight of his depictions of famous Black Americans are featured in the 1992 Black Heritage series commemorative book entitled I Have A Dream. Blackshear has received many awards for his art including a gold medal from the Society of Illustrators. This freelance artist, teacher, and lecturer currently lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado.