Honoring Civil Rights Trailblazer Dorothy Height
A stamp remembering her important legacy
April 11 marks 57 years since the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1968 was signed into law by President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Over the years the U.S. Postal Service has honored the civil rights movement and its leaders on dozens of stamps.
A 2017 issuance celebrated Dorothy Height (1912–2010), the tireless activist who dedicated her life to fighting for racial and gender equality. Although she rarely received the recognition granted her male contemporaries, she is seen as one of the most influential civil rights leaders of the 20th century.
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. While she herself did not speak at the historic event, she successfully pushed to include the voice of one of the movement’s younger leaders: John Lewis (also honored on a 2023 stamp issuance) of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. She also insisted on no time limits for King’s speech.
Art director Derry Noyes designed the stamp, which features a gouache and acrylic portrait of Height by artist Thomas Blackshear, based on a 2009 photograph by Lateef Mangum. It was issued as the 40th stamp in the Black Heritage series.