Dorothy Height

Fox News chose not to cover the homegoing services for Dr. Height, even though -- or maybe because -- President Obama was one of the eulogists.

But this is what he said, and we should not forget Dr. Height, the godmother of the Civil Rights Movement and a pioneer in so many areas during her 98 years on this earth. She helped integrate the YWCA in Harlem in the 1930s. That's when two of my great aunts were involved in the YWCA, so I'd like to think they were involved with her efforts. She was the lone woman at the table when the big men of the Civil Rights Movement were organizing the March on Washington in 1963 and when major legislation -- public accomodations, voting rights, etcetera -- became the laws of the land.

"Look at her body of work," the President said. "Desegregating the YWCA. Laying the groundwork for integration on Wednesdays in Mississippi. Lending pigs to poor farmers as a sustainable source of income. Strategizing with civil rights leaders, holding her own, the only woman in the room, Queen Esther to this Moses Generation -- even as she led the National Council of Negro Women with vision and energy, vision and class.

"But we remember her not solely for all she did during the civil rights movement. We remember her for all she did over a lifetime, behind the scenes, to broaden the movement’s reach. To shine a light on stable families and tight-knit communities. To make us see the drive for civil rights and women’s rights not as a separate struggle, but as part of a larger movement to secure the rights of all humanity, regardless of gender, regardless of race, regardless of ethnicity.

"It’s an unambiguous record of righteous work, worthy of remembrance, worthy of recognition. And yet, one of the ironies is, is that year after year, decade in, decade out, Dr. Height went about her work quietly, without fanfare, without self-promotion. She never cared about who got the credit. She didn’t need to see her picture in the papers. She understood that the movement gathered strength from the bottom up, those unheralded men and women who don't always make it into the history books but who steadily insisted on their dignity, on their manhood and womanhood. She wasn’t interested in credit. What she cared about was the cause. The cause of justice. The cause of equality. The cause of opportunity. Freedom’s cause.