SAN ANTONIO, TX — On Friday, March 31, the U.S. Postal Service and the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., San Antonio Alumnae Chapter will be sponsoring a special stamp dedication event for the recently issued Dorothy Height Forever Stamp. The event starts at 4 p.m. and will take place at the St. Philip's College Center for Learning Resources Ruth Jones McClendon Gallery, 1801 Martin Luther King Dr., San Antonio, TX 78203. On Feb. 1, the Postal Service commemorated the national release of the Height stamp with a First Day of Issue Ceremony in Washington, DC.
San Antonio Mayor Ivy R. Taylor will serve as guest speaker for the local Dorothy Height stamp event and Rio Grande District Manager Brenda Baugh will provide stamp dedication remarks. Other participants include local Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Alumnae Chapter President Cassandra Anderson Carter, and other community members and postal officials.
The Dorothy Height Forever stamp is the 40th stamp in the Postal Service's Black Heritage series. The stamp honors Height, a tireless activist, who dedicated her life to fighting for racial and gender equality. She became one of the most influential civil and women’s rights leaders of the 20th century.
The Dorothy Height Forever stamp features artist Thomas Blackshear II’s, portrait of Height. The painting is based on a photograph shot by Lateef Mangum in 2009. Art director Derry Noyes designed the stamp.
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 Martin Luther King Jr. It was Height 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.
Gender equality also 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. Height attended the 1963 White House ceremony where Kennedy 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 nation’s 44th president.
On Feb. 1, the Dorothy Height stamp went on sale nationwide. The stamp was issued as a Forever stamp, which will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail 1-ounce price. The stamps may be purchased while supplies last at local Post Offices; ordered online from the Postal Store: www.usps.com/shop , or by calling 800-STAMP24 (800-782-6724). A variety of related stamps and collectibles are also available at ebay.com/stamps.
Additional information for the Dorothy Height Forever stamp may be found online:
http://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2017/pr17_006.htm
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