Open Wide the Freedom Gates: A Memoir »

Dr. Dorothy Height has more than twenty honorary degrees. In addition to the Presidential Medal of Freedom, she has received the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Freedom Medal and the Citizens Medal Award, which President Ronald Reagan awarded her in 1989. Now 91, she continues to serve as chair and president emerita of the National Council of Negro Women. She lives in Washington, D.C.

A heroine of the Civil Rights Movement tells the remarkable story of her life, her work, and what it means to be both black and a woman

The New York Times

Though Height offers no startling insights into the momentous events she has lived through or the influential people she has known, her book gives a poignant short course in a century of African-American history.—Gioia Diliberto