Mike Dutton, Doodler

Dorothy Irene Height helped convince President Dwight Eisenhower to desegregate schools, encouraged President Lyndon Johnson to appoint black women to government positions, counseled First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, stood next to Dr. King when he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, and sat on the stage for President Barack Obama's first inauguration. Monday marks the 102nd anniversary of her birthday, a moment celebrated by a Google Doodle in her honor.

Over nearly 80 years of service, Ms. Height fought for the rights of African Americans, women, and handicapped people. Yet her vast career was nearly nipped in the bud.

You can watch President Obama’s eulogy of Height below

After growing up in a steel town outside Pittsburgh, she was admitted to Barnard College in New York. However once she arrived on campus in 1929, administrators told her that she needed to leave. The school had an unwritten rule that it would only accept two black students per year. Height was the odd woman out.

"Too distraught to call home, as she later wrote, Ms. Height did the only thing possible," the New York Times wrote in her 2010 obituary. "Clutching her Barnard acceptance letter, she took the subway downtown to New York University. She was admitted at once, earning a bachelor’s degree in education there in 1933 and a master’s in psychology two years later."

In fact, Barnard turned away another future public servant that same year. Sylva Gelber, who played a role in the women's movement in Canada, was rejected because “the Jewish quota was already filled.”

Her achievements include lobbying first lady Eleanor Roosevelt on civil rights as a YWCA worker during protests in New York's Harlem, helping to convince President Eisenhower to desegregated schools, and helping to organise the 1963 March on Washington.

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Height told the audience at the 1997 Human Rights Campaign National Dinner, which was honoring her civil rights work: "Civil rights are civil rights. There are no persons who are not entitled to their civil rights. ... We have to recognize that we have a long way to go, but we have to go that way together."

Dorothy I. Height

top: Seen with President Kennedy as he signs the Equal Pay Act. below: President Obama signs a bill in her honor