![](media/image1.emf){width="1.5in" height="0.38055555555555554in"}

Oral History of the

Belmont Report and the

National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects

of Biomedical and Behavioral Research

Interview with

Dorothy I. Height, Ph.D.

Chair, Executive Committee

National Council of Negro Women

Washington, D.C.

June 30, 2004

Belmont Oral History Project

**I N T E R V I E W**

*Interviewer: Dr. Bernard A Schwetz, D.V.M., Ph.D., Director, Office for
Human Research Protections*

*INTERVIEWER: Dr. Height, to get us started, if you would tell us your
name and your degrees and background, and what you\'re doing these
days.*

DR. HEIGHT: I\'m Dorothy Height. I am the Chair and President Emeritus
of the National Council for Negro Women, and the Chair of the Leadership
Conference on Civil Rights. I have a background in the field of
education with a master\'s degree from New York University and a
master\'s degree in social work.

*INTERVIEWER: It\'s an honor to have you as part of this series of
interviews that we\'re doing relative to the Belmont Report, and to be
able to talk to you about things that happened when you were a member of
the National Commission that wrote the series of reports including the
Belmont Report.*

DR. HEIGHT: Yes.

*INTERVIEWER: If you think back to that time 25 years ago and a little
more than 25 years ago, when you were brought in as a member of the
National Commission, what was it about your background at the time that
brought you into being a member of the National Commission?*

DR. HEIGHT: I think it was the fact that I had had a lot of experience
working with the Women\'s Christian Association, with the National
Council of Negro Women, and that I was active in the field of civil
rights, because I was not one of the professionals there. I was a public
member, and I represented I think the concerns of women because we were
dealing with issues of sterilization and, and testing, and issues that
really affected women\'s lives as well. I think that\'s why I was a part
of it.

*INTERVIEWER: Do you think the reports of the Commission reflected your
input?*

DR. HEIGHT: Yes, I do. I really felt that I was among professionals who
took the task seriously. I learned so much there as a part of that
Commission, but I think that what I was pleased with was that we had
public meetings where we heard from the public, but that also my voice
was listened to just as strongly as those who were professionally
equipped.

*INTERVIEWER: As I have read some of the documents that have been
written by ethicists, they have a language of their own.*

DR. HEIGHT: Yes, they do.

*INTERVIEWER: Was it difficult to work with this group of ethicists and
philosophers and have them understand you and for you to understand
them?*

DR. HEIGHT: I\'ve always had a great interest in\--and\--I\'ve always
had a great interest in knowing more about the reasons behind things,
the basis for them, the philosophy behind them. So that I found it
especially interesting to belong with such distinguished ethicists. I
didn\'t feel that they were hard to understand. There were times I had
to think twice or go back and read something to catch up with it, but
the thing that I think was so good was the way they were able to distill
the essence of it, to bringing those thoughts within the reach of the
average person where it needed to be, so that I understood very fully
what they were talking about, about some of the ethical values and some
of the principles that were so important. Some of those I also believe
because of my own faith.

*INTERVIEWER: I think that\'s particularly true of the Belmont Report.*

DR. HEIGHT: Yes.

*INTERVIEWER: That it is concise and easy, fairly easy to read. Is that
true of the other documents that were written by the Commission as
well?*

DR. HEIGHT: Many of those documents were very difficult, but I always
found it helpful to be able to have conversations, not only around the
edges, but conversations directly, even long-distance phone calls, to
talk about some of it because I was concerned. I knew what some of the
problems were. I knew what some of the concerns were. But I found it
helpful to be able to turn to them and raise those concerns and get
their responses within the context of what I was asking, but those
reports were mighty heavy.

*INTERVIEWER: In writing the Belmont Report itself, in coming up with
the final report that focused on the respect for persons and justice and
beneficence, did you feel that your input was reflected in having that
report be as concise as it was? Did it accurately reflect your thoughts
about civil rights and the rights of women?*

DR. HEIGHT: I think the fact that the report is very clear about the
respect for human personality, and I think it is very clear about
something that I think the general public often doesn\'t understand, as
we talk about equality, because I think it rightfully put the concept of
equality within the basis of the needs in the situation rather than just
say that equality meant just being equal. We had to say equal in which
dimensions? And I thought it was especially good to see that
differentiation.

*INTERVIEWER: You have probably given more thought to the issue of
equality than most of us.*

DR. HEIGHT: Yes, I spent a lifetime working on equality and justice.

*INTERVIEWER: How do you feel that we are meeting the essence of
equality as we conduct research involving humans today?*

DR. HEIGHT: As I understand it, I think we are doing better. I do not
feel that I\'m in touch with a wide range of research to know enough,
but from what I understand, I think we\'re doing better. At least I
think it is more in the open, and the kind of practice that was claimed
before, where people who are vulnerable were the subjects of research. I
don\'t see, I don\'t hear those kind of echoes today. I think the report
and the message it brought to the country made an impact.

*INTERVIEWER: If you think back to the way things were in the 1970s when
you were writing the reports for the National Commission, what were the
problems of equality that you were particularly concerned about at that
time?*

DR. HEIGHT: Well, problems like the Relf sisters, who were
sterilized\...black women were being sterilized without their knowledge.

The case that we had at Tuskegee, where men were used to experiment to
deal with sexually transmitted disease without their knowledge. Those
kinds of cases were not only reported in the national public, but in my
own life experience I knew of women across the State of Mississippi who,
we met together during the civil rights movement. It was hard to get a
group of 50 women together without having at least one tell about having
a child in the hospital and then finding later that she\'d been
sterilized.

So the issue of sterilization and of being used for experimentation just
stood out all over. So that this was something I was very conscious of,
as well as the fact that many times that the people who went into the
prisons were being used, and especially those who were people of color.

Those were the kinds of problems with which I was concerned and with
which I had had some familiarity, and I knew their impact in a
community. That\'s where we were when I went into the study.

*INTERVIEWER: When you had the discussions about those problems with the
rest of the Commissioners, were they sympathetic to the cause that you
were addressing?*

DR. HEIGHT: Oh, yes. They were very sympathetic. But you know, an
interesting thing was that even within those problems we found as we
visited the prisons and talked to different prisoners and the like, I
was interested in several of the major prisons to find that the black
and hispanic and other prisoners of color, on the other hand, they were
complaining that the white prisoners were treated as favorites at
Upjohn. They said that the white prisoners are given a chance to be in
the research. And for them, being in the research meant, they said you
had better beds, you get better food, and you have better chance of
getting out on probation.

So there was\--so that there was no clear black and white issues. Every
once in a while you found, as in that instance, that this was a place
where the prisoners, who were prisoners of color, were saying, \"We want
to be a part of the research.\" So that this was a continuing problem.
We were not just dealing with a simple matter. It was very complex, and
I felt that the way the Commission came through on it was very valuable.

*INTERVIEWER: If we were to consider rewriting that part of the common
rule today that deals with the research being done in prisoners, how
important would you say it would be for us to visit prisons and
understand what actually goes on in the prisoners\--in the prisons\--to
be able to write good regulations?*

DR. HEIGHT: I think that I would say that the basic principles that the
Belmont Report stresses need to be taken into account in all events. In
other words, I think we would find different experiences within
different prisons, but that we should not be trying to justify that
because I think we have to hold to the basic principles.

The principle of providing opportunity for people to voluntarily
determine whether they wish to be a part of something is one I think
should never be violated no matter what. But also, when you see whole
groups of people who are either treated one way or the other, I think it
says to us, in the light of the Belmont Report, we need to look into it
further.

*INTERVIEWER: By the time you were asked to be on the National
Commission, you had already been involved in civil rights work and
rights of* *women for many years.* *When did you become interested in
the ethics of research?*

DR. HEIGHT: To tell you the truth, I didn\'t realize I was interested in
the ethics of research as such. I just knew that I was worried about
what I was seeing was happening to women, and as I got on to the
Commission, I began to realize that this was a matter that was so
significant in our country that we had to have our Commission to look at
it, and that we had to establish working principles that would protect
people. That to me was a realization of the significance of the
Commission, but all my life I\'ve had to deal with and certainly issues
that women have raised about the way they are treated.

*INTERVIEWER: Was the National Commission a good place, a good home for
you to find people who agreed with your cause?*

DR. HEIGHT: It was a great place, and to people who gave me the
professional and the ethical understanding that reinforced the things
that I was hoping for in terms of social justice and in terms of the
growth and development of human beings\--and I have to tell you that it
was a rich experience for me.

*INTERVIEWER: Was there some one thing that the Commission accomplished
that you think stands out above all of the others?*

DR. HEIGHT: I have come to a deeper understanding of the importance of
informed consent. I\'ve always believed that people should have a right
to speak for themselves, but I\'ve\--but I had never thought of it in as
many dimensions. The people who cannot speak for themselves, who have to
have others speak for them, and the role that has to be played on a
community level so that that\'s not just person to person, but that the
role of the institutional review boards, the role it has taken in seeing
that proper surrogates are established to support people, I had not ever
thought of that in the depth that the Commission experience certainly
taught me, and I understand informed consent.

And I also understand the importance of having those channels that
translate those heavy big words into something that everybody can
understand, and the importance of seeing to it that this is not
something that is just in a perfunctory way, but is taken very
seriously. And that we look out for those who can speak for themselves
and for those who need someone reliable close to them, who cares about
them, who will speak for them.

*INTERVIEWER: We\'re still working on regulations today for
decisionally-impaired people. So while we understand that that\'s
something that we need to take care of it yet, there are some parts like
that that we still haven\'t gotten taken care of in terms of protecting
people who are involved in research. Do you know\--do you have in mind
any other examples of things where\--thing that you might have talked
about as a National Commission we still haven\'t accomplished in
protecting people?*

DR. HEIGHT: I know that it sounds like one\'s holding onto the past, but
I think that so long as we have a disproportionate number of people who
have color moving into the social\--criminal justice system into the
prisons, and so long as we have that kind of a problem, I feel that we
also have to have equal concern about making certain that our decisions
are just.

I think that we do not do enough to go beyond slogans about diversity. I
think that we have to take more care and add to the precautions. We also
have to add to the positive histories to help people understand those
who understand those who are the caretakers, those who are in charge of
our institutions, have respect for people of different races and
cultures. I think we do not do enough on that. I think that\'s where we
still have a long way to go.

And that it is good that as the Belmont Report requires, that the
institutions have a clear position, but I think the institutions have to
do more to see that there\'s proper training, that there is proper
really teaching about the importance of human personality not regardless
of race, creed or color or national origin, but with full regard for the
fact that people are of different races, creeds, colors and national
origin.

*INTERVIEWER: Because of the Tuskegee experiments, there is a distrust
among minority populations of the federal government and of the medical
profession, those people who provide medical care. And to some extent
that accounts for why we don\'t have very many minorities, including
African-Americans, volunteering to be participants in research. How can
we regain that trust to get minority people to volunteer for research?*

DR. HEIGHT: I think it\'s implied in what I just said a few moments ago,
and that is that there has to be more than saying, you know, \"The
public is welcome,\" or \"We\'re dealing with everybody.\" We have to be
willing to recognize and respect everybody and every group.

The distrust is there because people have a life experience in which the
color of their skin or their national origin, their background, has
influenced the way they are treated, and I have found, even as I have
talked to friends, that they are reluctant to go into certain health
institutions because they\'re not certain how they will be treated.

I think this means for us that we have a job to do to have\--increase
appreciation for people of different backgrounds, and understanding. And
that\'s one of the things that I think that the health profession knows
better than anyone else, that all people are created equal. But somehow
or other, as we get into the practice, it is not always there. I think
there\'s a better feeling today than there was 25 years ago, but I hear
all the time of those who are reluctant sometimes even to go for the
treatment they know they need because they do not feel they will be
treated fairly.

*INTERVIEWER: The situation with women in research is different than
minorities in research.*

DR. HEIGHT: Yes.

*INTERVIEWER: Where there are a lot of women involved in clinical
trials. From your career of women\'s rights interests, are you happy
that there are as many women in research as subjects today as there
are?*

DR. HEIGHT: Well, I\'m delighted to see more research on women. You
know, for a long time so much of the research, women were an asterisk,
to say nothing of the fact that women of color were another asterisk.
I\'m glad to see the direct research on women. Women\'s health is
women\'s health. It\'s not just health, it\'s women\'s health. And that
the spirit that we\'re going to have gathered, a respect for themselves
and their bodies, needs to be reflected in the way that we administer
our laws and our research.

*INTERVIEWER: But women and children have been identified as vulnerable
groups in some ways.*

DR. HEIGHT: Yes.

*INTERVIEWER: But now there are more women in clinical trials than there
are men. Does it concern you that this vulnerable group, women, are now
involved in research where there is some risk?*

DR. HEIGHT: One of the things that the Commission stressed was the
importance of keeping the relationship between risks and benefits at a
minimum, at some kind of a balance, and I think that more women are
ready to\--have been willing to step forward because they know the need
to know more about women, but it also means that there needs to be much
more information that they have so that they get to understand what
risks they are taking, and that this is not a matter of risking one to
save the other, but it\'s full respect that each person has a right to
determine whether she wants to take that risk.

*INTERVIEWER: What about children, where children of an age that are
young children don\'t have the opportunity to understand as much as
adults and it\'s difficult to get\--you can\'t get consent from them.
Someone else has to give consent.*

DR. HEIGHT: That\'s right.

*INTERVIEWER: As another vulnerable group, do you think it is
appropriate for us today to be encouraging that research will be done in
children so that we have drugs that have data that would allow their
safe use in children?*

DR. HEIGHT: I certainly do, but I also think this is all the more reason
why we need to be conscious of the importance of having surrogates who
are responsible, people who help make responsible decisions for
children. I think this is where we lie with children, a need to make
sure of those who are speaking for them are responsibly informed.

*INTERVIEWER: At the time you as the Commission finished the Belmont
Report, what impact did you think the Belmont Report would have when it
was released to the public and was given to other parts of the
government and so on?*

DR. HEIGHT: Well, I thought it would have the impact of beginning to
help us make\--translate that into some policies, social policies, that
would have effect. I was surprised that so much that came out, tentative
move towards the discussion simply of a fetus, and as if that were a
major\--as if it was the only thing we had taken up. And that there
was\--I think it diminished the quality of understanding that the
Commission had given to it, and I was glad to see that there were those
who stood up for helping it to be understood, that this was not a
political matter, but this was a matter of looking at the health and
welfare of people, and what we could do not only for those who are now
having particular problems, what we could do to deal with some of the
major diseases that affect people. I think that that was a part of the
impact of the report.

*INTERVIEWER: Did you know that the writings of the Commission would be
translated into regulations, the Common Rule, for example?*

DR. HEIGHT: When I knew that the Commission itself came into being
because of a congressional act, I knew that it was aimed at moving in a
direction of determining something that would influence policy. I think
otherwise it would have been futile to just have a commission and have a
report. I think we had to have some impact on policy.

*INTERVIEWER: And those policies eventually became the regulations.*

DR. HEIGHT: That\'s right, that it would lead to some regulations, yes.

*INTERVIEWER: That we work with today from the FDA and what is now
OHRP.*

DR. HEIGHT: Yes.

*INTERVIEWER: Did you, did you have in mind that, for example, the
Belmont Report would be helpful particularly to investigators doing the
research or to the people who were the participants, the subject of the
research?*

DR. HEIGHT: I thought it would be helpful in both directions. I had\--I
would not have been able to anticipate that I would see what came out of
the report as relevant to just daily living as to me it turned out to
be.

I find myself as I go now, and as I myself have been a patient, much
more conscious of my rights, much more open to reading the fine print,
much more aware that I can make some decisions, that I could make the
decisions that affect where I am, and I\'ve appreciated that and I think
that the\--for me, and I think that that\'s something that will be
available to any citizen.

*INTERVIEWER: You\'ve had a long career of helping to achieve the rights
for people, women and minorities. Do you find that having been on the
National Commission helped you in that cause, or did the writings of the
National Commission make your job even larger in trying to see to
the\--*

DR. HEIGHT: It\'s a little bit of both.

*INTERVIEWER: A little bit of both.*

DR. HEIGHT: It\'s like suddenly you realize what should have been
happening, and suddenly you are aware of the realities in the lives of
so many people you\'re working with that you only wish that this had
been there long ago.

But also it\'s like anything else, the progress that you\'ve made lays
bare the distance you still have to go, and I think that the good thing
is that I think the Belmont Report gave us a foundation from which to
\[inaudible\], gives us solid ground on which to stand.

And the ethical principles are valuable in any aspect of life, but to
see that applied to biomedical and chemical research and to human
development \[unintelligible\] is a great advance.

*INTERVIEWER: You had many accomplishments in the area of civil rights
before the National Commission asked you to come and help them, but then
you got to meet with all of these ethicists and philosophers and others.
Did that experience cause you to rearrange your priorities in what you
thought you needed to accomplish?*

DR. HEIGHT: I think because of the fact that I had a background based in
the Christian faith and that I had been working in social justice, then
for me it took me to another dimension. I mean here I was dealing with
some of the same issues but at a different level. That\'s the way it
seemed to me, because you see, when you say respect for human
personality, that\'s the basis of my faith. The quest for social justice
is a lifetime concern, and you want justice in every area that deals
with social being.

So I think that\'s why I found the hard work, the study, the heavy
reading, the long sessions, that that\'s why I found them invigorating
because it meant for me that I was really dealing with these principles
and concepts that had real meaning to me.

*INTERVIEWER: Looking back at what you did cover as a Commission, but
knowing now what has happened in the last 25 years since the Belmont
Report was written, are there issues that you wish you had dealt with on
the Commission that you didn\'t, that had not come to be important? For
example, the problems we\'re having with conflicts of interest, the
Belmont Report is silent on conflict of interest. Are there issues that
you wished you had dealt with?*

DR. HEIGHT: Well, I\'m confident there are some. I\'m not a\--they
don\'t stand out for me as issues except as I\'ve said to you. I think
the preparation of the people who carry out policies, the people who
administer services, who conduct research, that have \[inaudible\] to
control their own biases, and have a way in which they can make a
contribution, that will absolve people. This to me is a\--this is a
fundamental one, but otherwise, I don\'t think of anything.

*INTERVIEWER: When the Belmont Report became public, was it well
received in the community?*

DR. HEIGHT: Yes. Well, there were those\--you know you had people
who\--there were those who reacted to certain parts of it because they
lifted it out of context, but I think that\'s\--as I have moved around I
have felt that there was relief that some of these issues have been
taken care of, and some of these things have been defined in some new
ways.

*INTERVIEWER: The report was unusually brief. When you bring a group of
experts together and ask them to write something, it\'s usually very
long and hard to understand.*

DR. HEIGHT: Yes.

*INTERVIEWER: How did you accomplish writing a report that was as brief
as it was, but had the long life that this report still has?*

DR. HEIGHT: It was a hard task. It was a hard task, but I think there
was a kind of group determination, and the Chairman kept pushing us in
that direction to make this something that could be useful, but also
something that could be understood and could be a basis for service, a
basis for those who would be doing, making studies, for those\--for even
practitioners, that it needed to be in a form that could be understood,
but this was effort. We had some might good people on there. I can\'t
take any credit for it because I was not one of the writers. We had
several worked long and hard on \[unintelligible\].

*INTERVIEWER: Do you think that we are too restrictive in research
today? When you have regulations that defines how things should be done,
but then people tend to overreact to the regulations and it becomes a
burdensome process, do you think it\'s too restrictive today to
accomplish what was set out in the Belmont Report?*

DR. HEIGHT: I don\'t have a sense of that. I have a sense that it is
critical to be clear on the basic principles that guide whatever
research, and that\'s what I think the report tried to do. I think it
tried to establish principles rather than guidelines, gave us working
principles, basic principles.

*INTERVIEWER: That\'s why it\'s still valuable today?*

DR. HEIGHT: Yes, still valuable today, and I think they\'ll be valuable
for years and years to come.

*INTERVIEWER: So from your standpoint do you think the Belmont Report
needs to be rewritten in some way?*

DR. HEIGHT: I\'m sure there are aspects of\--as we move along and have
the experience, there will be parts, yes, that will need to be added to
it, other parts, but I think that this remains\--for me it is a basic
document. I think that\--I do not see any of the areas there that would
be different. I think there might be particular experiences and
particular problems that may arise that may need some petition of here,
but I think the basic principles are in that report.

*INTERVIEWER: When you discussed what the Belmont Report should look
like, were you taking into account what we referred to today as social
and behavioral research as well as biomedical research? Or was it based
primarily on biomedical?*

DR. HEIGHT: Oh, it\--our task had to deal with medical and behavioral,
and I think that we stayed within the context of our assignment. To me
we did not go beyond that. I think as we see the climate today, there
are some issues beyond what Belmont had to deal with, that, for
instance, in the area of women\'s issues the whole matters were looking
at the issues relating to our rights for abortion and the whole issue of
the use of a fetus and stem cells and the like. I think there are those
kinds of issues that will be arising.

But I think there are principles here that affect those, but those need
special study based upon what Belmont had to say.

*INTERVIEWER: When you were discussing the ethics of doing research in
humans that involved humans back in the \'70s, I would assume you were
talking primarily, thinking primarily about research within the United
States.*

DR. HEIGHT: Yes.

*INTERVIEWER: As opposed to the international dimension*?

DR. HEIGHT: Right.

*INTERVIEWER: How well do you think the principles of the Belmont Report
hold up in the arena of doing research internationally today?*

DR. HEIGHT: To me they have a universal quality. There may be some areas
that require\--because of the social traditions that have to be looked
at, but I think underneath it all, these are basic principles that are
universal.

*INTERVIEWER: So that the principles of the report apply to research in
the area\--*

DR. HEIGHT: It has some significance, yes, for whatever.

*INTERVIEWER: When you met as a Commission, the discovery of what was
going on in the Tuskegee research had all come to light, and it was
something that must have been on the minds of many of you. To what
extent do you think the experience in the Tuskegee experiments drove
what happened in writing the documents of the National Commission?*

DR. HEIGHT: The Tuskegee experience and the Relf sisters were both
fundamental to the Senate\--the bill coming before the Senate calling
for the Commission. It was that, that deeply rooted in the need to
change what was happening. So that that was their reference, very much a
part of what led to the legislation that established the Commission. It
was the protest around that. It was\--I guess it was the exposure that
really I think had a great impact on making it clear that something had
to be done, and I think it was Senator Kennedy who introduced
legislation calling for some kind of review of what the methods are.

You see, there was\--in the climate there was a sense that working for
civil rights made everybody working for civil rights as if we were a
special cause, as if we were a special interest group. But suddenly this
kind of thing burst forward, and it make it very clear that this
affected those people that we were exposing, but there were others, poor
people, poor whites, others who came forward with similar experiences.
So I think this was a, it was kind of a turning point, kind of a point
of exposing and opening up an issue that had to be addressed and it had
to be addressed at the highest level.

*INTERVIEWER: Do you think another Tuskegee experiment could happen in
the U.S. today? Do you think something of that kind that would be a
similar experiment to what was done in Tuskegee, do you think that could
happen in the U.S. today?*

DR. HEIGHT: I would certainly hope not. I wish I could say that it would
not, but I hope not, but I think there\'s more responsible actions now,
and I think that there\'s been enough in the whole field
of\--particularly in the health field, there\'s been enough coming
forward about this. I would hope that this kind of thing would not
happen.

*INTERVIEWER: The African-American community is still angry about what
happened I the Tuskegee experiment.*

DR. HEIGHT: Yes.

*INTERVIEWER: And it keeps them from volunteering to be parts of
research studies today.*

DR. HEIGHT: That\'s right.

*INTERVIEWER: How can we reverse that to get them into research?*

DR. HEIGHT: I think the only way we can reverse it is to increase the
evidence that people are being treated fairly, to get the message out to
let people know what their rights are. You see, many times we say this
is public knowledge, but it doesn\'t get to the people who need to have
it, and that if more people in the African-American community
under\--got the word and then it might certainly work at helping people
understand that they have rights, and that those rights are guaranteed,
but also to know how to use them. I think it\'s a matter of public
education, helping them know how to use those rights and how the\--

Within the past year a young woman, who had been the victim of
sterilization, really was not only depressed, but she was so despondent
that in her little town the whole church had a service to pray to try to
get her back on her feet. It was all about the fact that she wanted to
have more children and she couldn\'t have children, and this was
affecting her.

I was in a meeting where this issue came up, and someone stood and said,
this is just\--it happened to have been an interracial meeting, and
this, this white man said, \"Nothing like that could happen here. These
are good hospitals. Nothing like that could happen.\" And of course, you
can imagine what the reaction was in the congregation, especially from a
person they thought was a friend, but though he was a friend, he did not
believe what this young woman was saying, and what the church, what they
were concerned about.

And I said I thought these days were gone, but you see, we still have a
distance between what has been acted upon at the top and how that
message has gotten down. I think there has to be much more direct public
information and education, and a recognition that we have some problems
we cannot correct\--it\'s too late\--but give people assurance that
we\'re ready to move forward. There is not a sense of well being and
security around such matters in the community, and we have to recognize
that, and we cannot write it off and say there\'s something wrong with
the people.

I think the wrongness is how we get the message out and how we assure
that those who administer understand it and treat people as if they were
all equal.

*INTERVIEWER: We need more Dr. Heights to get the word out. We need more
Dr. Heights to help us get this job done.*

DR. HEIGHT: Well, I do all I can.

*INTERVIEWER: How do we cultivate young people to take up the cause like
you did?*

DR. HEIGHT: Well, I think, I think that my life is driven by a purpose,
a determination to work for social justice. And I think that we have to
encourage more people to be concerned not just about themselves but
about others, and that we have to be really\--and I come out of a
tradition that says you have to be willing, if you have had an
advantage, to see what it is you can give back to the community. How do
you help the community?

And I think as we get more and more things, see, even like this kind of
information, get the benefits of the best research, that we need to have
ways of getting that understood.

And the thing I like about the Belmont Report is that you don\'t have to
have four dictionaries to read it. You can bring it within the mass of
people so that they can understand it and can use it, and then that
begins to build confidence neighbor to neighbor, community to community.

*INTERVIEWER: You have mentioned social justice several times as being
very important to you. If you consider the three principles that were
highlighted in the Belmont Report, do you feel respect for persons, or
beneficence, or justice, any one of those is far more important than the
other two?*

DR. HEIGHT: No. I think they all have to go together. It\'s a respect
for human personality that drives you to recognize the individuality and
to see to it that a person has the right to voluntarily enter whatever
it is, but also the right to determine whether they will be a part of,
and also that they have the assurance that they will be protected, that
they will not be placed knowingly in a harmful situation, but that they
will be protected. I think all of that, I don\'t think you can choose
one. I think they are all interrelated. I think the ethical base of them
is the same.

*INTERVIEWER: As you think back on the hard work of those years when you
met frequently and\--*

DR. HEIGHT: Frequently and hard.

*INTERVIEWER: And hard. Are there some things that stand out as being
particularly exciting about the accomplishments, or particularly
frustrating?*

DR. HEIGHT: We always ended up having a good time. No. It was a very
good group to be a part of, it really was.

*INTERVIEWER: Are there any things that I haven\'t asked you about about
being on the National Commission that you would like to share with us?*

DR. HEIGHT: I think the one thing that for me has been a real
knowledge\--and this is not a research element, but it was that as a
public citizen\--was the opportunity to have the interaction with the
professionals, but also to have a realization that it was not one above
the other, but that we were like a team, and that I was as important as
those who had the most knowledge because it was always about people, and
that I could share what I knew that was happening to people.

And I think that as we have more such opportunities, and that where
people feel free to say that I am a person but I am also an
African-American. I\'m a woman, and I can feel free to be who I am.
That\'s what I liked about being in this group, I could be who I am and
speak up at any moment on any issue, and have the\--each of us had the
respect for the other. And I think that\'s what we need in our society
to develop at all levels, the highest or the lowest, so that to\--you
know, so that we can build something for the society is more just.

*INTERVIEWER: Very good. Thank you. I can\'t remember that I\'ve ever
had the opportunity to talk with someone who worked with Eleanor
Roosevelt personally.*

DR. HEIGHT: Oh, yes.

*INTERVIEWER: Would you share some of that experience of what it was
like to work with her?*

DR. HEIGHT: Well, Roosevelt was a remarkable women. I got to know her
because in November 1977 I was a young staff person at the Harlem Branch
of the YWCA, and I was escorting her into a meeting Mary McLeod Bethune
was holding, and it turned out to be a meeting of the National Council
of Negro Women. And as I was escorting Mrs. Roosevelt, who drove her own
Thunderbird from Washington, parked it in a Harlem street for two hours,
made a speech, got in her own car and drove on to Hyde Park, and as I
was returning, Mrs. Bethune said\--asked me my name, and she told me,
she said, \"Well, come back. We need you.\" And I\'ve been back ever
since.

But for the rest of those two women\'s lives, they were a great
influence. In 1938 I was one of 10 young people\--Mrs. Roosevelt had
come to Hyde Park for a weekend to prepare for the World Conference of
Youth held at Vassar College, and she sat there through the meeting
knitting, but before that she had prepared us all on how to speak up for
our principles and for what we believed in as we met the communist and
youth from other parts of the world.

I served with her too on the President\'s Commission on the Status of
Women, and she was\--I\'ll never forget her saying, when she first told
cabinet members that we were there to work on the elimination of
discrimination. She said they listened when she said race, creed, color
and national origin, but they laughed when she got to the word \"sex.\"
And so\--but I\--after that report and since then, I don\'t think there
will be much laughing today, as you talk about \[unintelligible\].

One of the things that I always remember about her, I worked with a
group that interviewed women from different parts of the world. And
I\'ll never forget one time\--we had finished the discussion, and Mrs.
Roosevelt was about to leave. And one of the women, a Chinese woman,
said, \"Mrs. Roosevelt, I want to ask you how did you get to be such a
wonderful person?\"

And she sat back on the desk that was nearest to her, and she said,
\"Because I was married to a wonderful man.\" And she said, \"When he
was Governor of New York he couldn\'t travel, so he sent me out. And I
would come back and give him reports of how good things were, and he
said, \"Eleanor, don\'t you know, when you go to an orphanage that the
meals are going to be good that day?\" He said, \"The next time you go
out, don\'t just let them feed you what they have. Ask to see the menus
for the last month. Also, find out before you go where the poor people
live, and when they take you down those fancy streets, you ask to go
down these streets that they didn\'t mention.\" He said, \"And look on
the clothesline and see what the clothes look like in the poorer
neighborhoods. How do people\--what\'s going on?\"

She said, \"Since then I go into every place with my eyes open.\" And
she said, \"That\'s how it is that I never go any place,\" she said,
\"and I always realize that they do things specially for me, but I go to
see how the people really are.\"

Interestingly enough, about 10 years ago I was in Taiwan, and a woman
came up to me, and she said, \"You may not remember, but I\'m the woman
who asked Mrs. Roosevelt that question,\" and she said, \"It changed my
whole life.\" She said, \"When she talked about\"\--and one of the
things she said was\--Mrs. Roosevelt said\--she said, \"When I go places
and see people down on\--sweeping the floor down on their knees,\" she
said, \"I try to see what I can do to get them to stand up and not take
all that dust into their lungs.\" She said, \"I try to see what I can
do.\" She said, \"I try to do little things that help.\"

And this woman said, \"At that time I was a journalist, but after
that,\" she said\--and now she told me, she was a member of the
parliament or whatever it was, the government, and what she was doing.
But she said, \"But it was Mrs. Roosevelt who gave me that vision that I
could be more.\"

And she did that to so many people, and I think that\'s why black people
loved her so, because she had a vision of how people should treat
people, and how she could serve people. She was wonderful.

*INTERVIEWER: My impression, just in reading things, she\'s portrayed as
a very strong person.*

DR. HEIGHT: Very strong.

*INTERVIEWER: But personable as well?*

DR. HEIGHT: Yeah, very. Personable, very easy-going, and very down to
earth. Just before she died she had the members of the Commission come
to Hyde Park, and she was taking us through the Roosevelt house. When I
was a youth we were at the Val-Kill Cottage, which was her cottage, but
this was the big house. And she just took us through and she paused as
she took us through, and she said, \"Franklin\'s mother was very strict,
and she used to give the children assignments, and then they were\--but
they were always to be dressed for dinner no matter what it was.\" And
she said, \"One day they came and they said to the grandmother\--she
said, \"You are not dressed for dinner.\" And they said, \"We didn\'t
have time to dress with all the things you asked us to do.\" And Mrs.
Roosevelt said, she said to them, \"You had all the time there was.\"

And she said, \"That was a lifelong lesson for those children. You have
to get everything done within the time that there is.\" So, but she had
a real sense of humor. She was really wonderful.

*INTERVIEWER: Thoughts that you have about your interactions with Martin
Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X?*

DR. HEIGHT: I first met him when he was 15-years-old, and he had just
come to Morehouse College as a gifted child. And I lived with Dr. and
Mrs. Mays \[ph\], who were the President of this Morehouse. And they had
him to dinner for me to meet, and he was at the place where he was
trying to decide whether he was going to go into law or medicine or the
ministry. But he was like any 15-year-old would be. He was thinking out
loud. And I often thought, 10 years later\--that was \'45\--and 10 year
later, \'55, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, he became our
leader.

But it was great having the experience, and until his death, I worked
with the five other men, the Strategy Group for the Civil Rights
Movement, and he was\--but he was all the\--he was the one I thought who
had the best vision about women as well as civil rights. You know, there
are a lot of men who worked for civil rights, who didn\'t work as hard
for women\'s rights. But Martin Luther King was not one \[inaudible\].

I remember he always said, one day\--he wrote this from the Birmingham
Jail\--that one day the South would rise up an realize its true heroes,
like the 72-year-old woman who refused\--during a Montgomery
\[unintelligible\] had to ride in a car, and she was walking. And she
said\--he said she said it in an ungrammatical fashion, \"My feets may
be tired but my soul is rested.\" And he said, it\'s those kind of
people within our\--he was aware that while he carried a major
leadership role, at the backbone of the civil rights movement, women,
children and youth, this is often overlooked.

*INTERVIEWER: That\'s interesting. It has been an honor for me to have
this interview with you, and I thank you very much.*

DR. HEIGHT: Oh, thank you. It was a pleasure for me. Thank you very
much. Thank you. Get my starving board member over here.

\[Board Member\]: I thought it was very interesting equally, equally
interesting, yes. It\'s rare that you get a chance to interview living
history.

*INTERVIEWER: That\'s right. A wonderful opportunity.*

\[Board Member\]: I should say. Every time I come here I\'m just\--I
learn one more thing. I\'m amazed all over again.

*INTERVIEWER: Maybe we can get you out of the bright lights now. I love
your hat.*

DR. HEIGHT: Oh, thank you.

--END OF INTERVIEW--