Marian Wright Edelman
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Marian Wright Edelman (born June 6, 1939, in Bennettsville, South Carolina) is an American activist for the rights of children. She is president and founder of the Children's Defense Fund.
Edelman's thinking was influenced by her father, Arthur Wright, a Baptist preacher who taught that Christianity required service in this world, and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph. Her father died when Marian was only fourteen, urging in his last words to her, "Don't let anything get in the way of your education." [1]
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[edit] Early life and education
Marian Wright Edelman was born in and grew up in Bennettsville, South Carolina, one of five children. She attended Spelman College and, while there, became involved in the Civil Rights Movement, spending time in Mississippi working on voter registration drives.
She then entered Yale Law School and graduated in 1963, joining the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
[edit] Activism
She worked out of the LDF's Mississippi office and became the first African American woman to practice law. During her time in Mississippi, she worked on racial justice issues connected with the civil rights movement and represented activists throughout the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964. She also helped get a Head Start program established in her community. She was the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar.
In 1967, during a tour by Robert Kennedy and Joseph Clark of Mississippi's poverty-ridden Delta slums, Marian met Peter Edelman, an assistant to Kennedy, and the next year she moved to Washington, D.C., to marry him. In Washington, Marian Wright Edelman continued her work, helping to organize Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Poor People's Campaign. She founded the Washington Research Project, a public interest law firm and also became interested in issues related to childhood development and poverty-stricken children.
In 1973, she founded the Children's Defense Fund as a voice for poor, minority and handicapped children. The organization has served as an advocacy and research center for children's issues, documenting the problems and possible solutions to children in need. To keep the agency independent, she saw that it was financed entirely with private funds.[2]
As founder, leader and principal spokesperson for the CDF, Mrs. Edelman worked to persuade Congress to overhaul foster care, support adoption, improve child care and protect children who are handicapped, homeless, abused or neglected. A philosophy of service absorbed during her childhood undergirds all her efforts. As she expresses it, “If you don’t like the way the world is, you have an obligation to change it. Just do it one step at a time.” [3]
She is the author of seven books, including:
- Families in Peril: An agenda for Social Change
- The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours
- I’m Your Child, God: Prayers for Our Children.
She continues to advocate youth pregnancy prevention, child-care funding, prenatal care, greater parental responsibility in teaching values and curtailing children’s exposure to the barrage of violent images transmitted by mass media. [4]
[edit] Honors
Barnard College, at its 1985 commencement ceremonies, awarded Edelman its highest honor, the Barnard Medal of Distinction. She was awarded an honorary LL.D. from Bates College in 1986. She is a recipient of the 1995 Community of Christ International Peace Award; of the Silver Buffalo Award, the highest adult award given by the Boy Scouts of America; and of the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism.
In an interview with Shelly R. Fredman on AlterNet, Howard Zinn suggested that Edelman would make a better Democratic Presidential Candidate than either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.[1] Edelman serves on the board of the Robin Hood Foundation, a charitable organization that attempts to alleviate poverty-related problems in New York City, New York.
Among the many awards to Marian Wright Edelman: [5]
- 1991 - ABC's Person of the Week - "The Children's Champion"
- MacArthur "genius" award
- More than 65 honorary degrees
[edit] Private life
She is married to Georgetown law professor, author, and policy maker Peter Edelman. Peter Edelman and Marian Wright Edelman have three sons.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ http://womenshistory.about.com/od/marianwrightedelman/p/m_w_edelman.htm
- ^ http://womenshistory.about.com/od/marianwrightedelman/p/m_w_edelman.htm
- ^ http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/pgs/portraits/Marian_Wright_Edelman.html
- ^ http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/pgs/portraits/Marian_Wright_Edelman.html
- ^ http://womenshistory.about.com/od/marianwrightedelman/p/m_w_edelman.htm
[edit] External links
- Biography page at CDF
- http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/blbio_marian_wright_edelman.htm
- Presentation given at Westminister Town Hall Forum discussing "weasels" in American democracy
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