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Marian Wright Edelman

Marian Wright Edelman was born on June 6, 1939 in Bennettsville, South Carolina, one of five children. Her father, Arthur Wright, was a Baptist preacher who taught his children that Christianity required service in this world. He died when Marian was only fourteen, urging in his last words to her, "Don't let anything get in the way of your education."

THE SPELMAN & YALE YEARS

Marian went to Spelman College where she studied abroad on a Merrill scholarship and traveled to the Soviet Union on a Lisle fellowship. When she returned to Spelman in 1959, she became involved in the civil rights movement, inspiring her to drop her plans to enter the foreign service. Instead, she decided to study law at Yale and worked as a student on a project to register African American voters in Mississippi.

THE ACTIVIST YEARS

In 1963, after graduating from Yale Law School, Marian worked first in New York for the NAACP Legal and Defense Fund, and then in Mississippi for the same organization. There, she 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 she also helped get a Head Start program established in her community.

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 and to work for social justice in the center of America's political scene. They had three sons.

THEN, LASER-BEAM FOCUS ON CHILDREN & FAMILIES

In Washington, Marian continued her work of helping to get the Poor People's Campaign organized. But, she increasingly began to focus on issues specific to child development and children in poverty.

In 1973 Marian Wright Edelman established the Children's Defense Fund as a voice for poor, minority and handicapped children. She tirelessly serves as a public speaker on behalf of children, frequently testifies before Congress (as shown here) on the legislative impact of policies on children and families, as well as acts as president and administrative head of the organization. The agency serves not only as an advocacy organization, but as a research center, 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.

As part of her efforts on behalf of children, Marian Wright Edelman has advocated pregnancy prevention, child care funding, health care funding, prenatal care, parental responsibility for education in values, reducing the violent images presented to children, and selective gun control in the wake of school shootings.

Marian Wright Edelman has shared her ideas in two major books. Published in 1993, The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours, helps parents chart a course for their children based on traditional values: self-reliance, family, hard work, justice, the pursuit of knowledge and of brotherhood. In it she recounts her experience and vision in essays variously addressed to her own children, to all children and to parents.

In the year 2000 she wrote, Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors. In this memoir, she identifies and describes her mentors -- those who influenced, motivated and shaped her as she became a full-time crusader for poor children. They include Fannie Lou Hamer, Robert Kennedy, Benjamin Mays, Martin Luther King Jr., and the wise and caring women of Bennettsville, SC. Marian uses glimpses of her personal life to help understand how to become better parents, better citizens, and better people.

HER LEGACY:

A TIRELESS, COMPELLING ADVOCATE FOR CHILDREN

Marian Wright Edelman is, without doubt, the country's most renowned advocate for children. She has become a legendary leader as a child advocate and president of the Children's Defense Fund. There is scarcely a child in this country who has not benefited from her decades of work on the issues of hunger, poverty, child care, and the Head Start program.