Marian Wright Edelman
By
John C Abercrombie
Marian Wright Edelman is the founder of The Children’s Defense Fund. Founded in 1973 with the goal of improving federal policies concerning child welfare and public education systems. An effective leader, she has been an advocate for disadvantaged Americans of all races for all of her life.
Born in Bennettsville, South Carolina June 6, 1939. Her father was a Baptist Minister. Arthur Jerome Wright and his wife Maggie Leola Bowen raised 5 children with Marian being the youngest. Edelman’s parents were action orientated and instilled a strong desire for education in the family. At the age of 14, (1953) Edelman’s father died of a heart attack. His last words were “Don’t let anything get in the way of your education!”
Rev Arthur Wright was a man of action. When Blacks in Bennettsville were not allowed to enter City parks, he built a park for Blacks behind his church.
Note: It was usual practice particularly in the South to deny Blacks amenities that were generally provided to Whites, such as parks. Even when they were provided, they were far from equal.
The Marlboro Training High School was built in 1928 and founded by the Marlboro Educational Society as the first high school for Blacks in the county.
Bennettsville, South Carolina is the County Seat of Marlboro County.
This is the High School that Marian attended. Again, although there was a school, it was not equal in building quality, equipment, or books. It was not until the mid-40’s that Black teachers in South Carolina were paid the same as White teachers.
Edelman graduated from Marlboro Training High School in 1956. She then attended the renown Spelman College, now Spelman University – part of the Atlanta university Center academic consortium. Spelman was founded in 1881 as the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary. Spelman is America’s oldest private historically Black liberal arts college for Black women.
Spelman is ranked among the nation’s top liberal arts colleges.
Due to her academic achievement Edelman was awarded a Merrill scholarship which allowed her to travel and study abroad. She studied French civilization at the Sorbonne University and at the University of Geneva in Switzerland.
As a Lisle Fellow during her second semester abroad she studied in the Soviet Union. In 1959 she returned to Spelman for her senior year and became involved in the Civil Rights Movement. In 1960 she was arrested along with 14 other students at one of the largest sit-ins at the Atlanta City Hall.
She graduated from Spelman as valedictorian. She went on to study law and enrolled at Yale Law School where she was a John Hay Whitney Fellow, and earned a Juris Doctor in 1963.
Following graduation from Yale Law School, she moved to Mississippi and became the first Black woman to be admitted to the Mississippi Bar.
Starting with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s Mississippi Office. She worked on racial justice issues, representing activists during the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964. She also helped establish the Head Start program.
In 1968, she moved to Washington, D.C. where she continued her work
• Organizing he Poor People’s Campaign of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• The Southern Christian Leadership Conference
• Founded the Washington Research Project, a public interest law firm
• Became interested in issues related to childhood development
She founded the Children’s Defense Fund. It served as
• A voice for poor children
• Children of color
• Children with disabilities
The Children’s Defense had a teen pregnancy prevention program among its array of services. Served as an advocacy and research center for children’s issues. They documented problems and solutions to children in need.
Edelman also became involved in school desegregation cases as well as the board of the Child Development Group of Mississippi. One of the largest Head Start programs in America.
Edelman worked tirelessly to persuade the United States Congress to
• Overhaul foster care
• Support adoption
• Improve child care
• Protect children who are
o Disabled
o Homeless
o Abused
o Neglected
She expressed her philosophy as, “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.”
In addition, Edelman continues to advocate greater parental responsibility in teaching values and curtailing children’s exposure to the prevalent exposure of violence in mass media.
Edelman is a woman dedicated to the causes for which she is fighting. She has dedicated her life’s work to something that she sincerely believes in.
As we continue with a study of her and her work, we have some amazing videos, books that provide even more insight into the woman and her cause.
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Continue with amazing videos and books below.
Reflections from a lifetime fighting to end child poverty | Marian Wright Edelman
What does it take to build a national movement? In a captivating conversation with TEDWomen curator Pat Mitchell, Marian Wright Edelman reflects on her path to founding the Children’s Defense Fund in 1973 — from the early influence of growing up in the segregated American South to her activism with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — and shares how growing older has only made her more radical.
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Cell Phones
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The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours
The #1 New York Times bestseller is a thinking person’s Life’s Little Instruction Book, with simple yet inspirational messages about living.
ABH – The Measure of our Success
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Renewed Cell Phones 5G
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Marian Wright Edelman
Marian Wright Edelman, the founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, is the author of the bestseller The Measure of Our Success A Letter to My Children and Yours and eight other books. The first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, she worked as counsel for the Poor Peoples Campaign begun by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She discusses her newest work The Sea is So Wide and My Boat is So Small Charting a Course for the Next Generation. Series: Voices [6/2009] [Humanities] [Show ID: 16213]
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Organic Tooth Paste
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Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors
Throughout her life and work, Marian Wright Edelman has been at the heart of this century’s most dramatic civil rights and child advocacy struggles. In this stirring, heartfelt memoir she pays tribute to the extraordinary mentors who helped light her way including Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, Fannie Lou Hamer, and William Slaone Coffin. She celebrates the lives of her parents and the great Black Women of Bennettsville, South Carolina- Miz Tee, Miz Lucy, Miz Kate-who gave her love and guidance in her youth, as well as the many teachers and figures who inspired her education at Spelman College and empowered her early as an activist in the 1960’s.
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Children’s Furniture
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Keep Moving Forward – Marian Wright Edelman and the Children’s Defense Fund
Marian Wright Edelman, the founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, is the author of the bestseller The Measure of Our Success A Letter to My Children and Yours and eight other books. The first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, she worked as counsel for the Poor Peoples Campaign begun by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She discusses her newest work The Sea is So Wide and My Boat is So Small Charting a Course for the Next Generation. Series: Voices [6/2009] [Humanities] [Show ID: 16213]
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Insulated Tumbler
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I Can Make a Difference: A Treasury to Inspire Our Children
Marian Wright Edelman has drawn from a variety of cultures and peoples to compile these timeless stories, poems, songs, quotations, and folktales that speak to all children to let them know that they can make a difference in today’s world.
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Paper Plates
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Harry’s Last Lecture: Marian Wright Edelman
(November 30, 2011) Marian Wright Edelman, the 2011 Rathbun Visiting Fellow at Stanford and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, delivers the fourth annual Harry’s Last Lecture on a Meaningful Life, a yearly address that honors the late Stanford law Professor Harry Rathbun. As one of many topics Edelman covers, she urges the audience to stand up for kids and never to let anybody else define their lives.
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Gourmet Spices and Seasonings
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The Sea Is So Wide and My Boat Is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation
In America today, the gap between the rich and the poor is the greatest ever recorded–larger than any other industrialized nation. It has become far too easy to ignore the hardships of millions of children plagued by poverty, poor health, illiteracy, violence, adult hypocrisy, and injustice. As founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, Marian Wright Edelman knows all too well the suffering of so many of our nation’s children, who live every day with adversity most of us can barely imagine. In The Sea Is So Wide and My Boat Is So Small, Edelman asks difficult questions about what we truly value, and looks hard at what we can–and must–do to build a nation fit for all children. With the passion and conviction that have made her our leading child advocate, she calls us all to stand up for the future of America. What have we done and what have we left undone? What lessons can we learn from our past and our present to realize a just and peaceful national and world vision for our children and grandchildren?
Marian Wright Edelman challenges all of us–our leaders, our teachers, the faith community, parents, grandparents, and future generations–to end the epidemic physical and spiritual poverty afflicting millions of our children. We can leave our children with a better, safer, and fairer world if we care enough. And we can–and must–do it now.
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Sheets
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Marian Wright Edelman
Marian Wright Edelman is founder and President of the Children’s Defense Fund, the nation’s strongest advocacy group for children and families. Born in 1939 in Bennettsville, South Carolina, she attended Spelman College and Yale Law School. In the sixties, she was active in the civil rights movement in Mississippi and worked with Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy to assist poor people.
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Hypnotic Growing System
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I’m Your Child, God
Marian Wright Edelman’s collection of prayers has an immediate, honest voice that touches on issues that children and teens face in today’s increasingly complicated world. Grouped according to themes such as hope, gratitude, and help, and filled with wisdom and insight, these prayers offer our children a powerful opportunity to connect with their own spirituality. Bryan Collier, recipient of the Caldecott Honor Medal, among other honors, captures the vibrancy of our multicultural world in his stunning collage artwork.
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Fruits and Nuts
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Marian Wright Edelman, Delivering a Message to Martin Luther King
Marian Wright Edelman facilitated communications between President Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In this MAKERS moment, she reflects on how her work inspired Dr. King to plan the Poor People’s March on Washington.
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Compression Garments
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Guide My Feet: Prayers and Meditations for Our Children
Here are prayers and meditations for parents and others who strive to instill values of faith, integrity, compassion, and service in our children at a time when these ideas are threatened by commercialism and violence. With warmth and conviction, Edleman shares his own prayers as well as inspirational readings from others. Turn in this book for guidelines and support–again and again.
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Doorbell Camera
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Marian Wright Edelman interview (1992)
Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, shares “The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours,” and what drove her to write it.
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Personalized Mugs
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Guide My Feet
The founder of the Children’s Defense Fund and author of The Measure of Our Success presents prayers and meditations to inspire all those, such as parents, teachers, and ministers, who work on the behalf of children.
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Keep Moving Forward – Marian Wright Edelman and the Children’s Defense Fund
Civil rights icons Marian Wright Edelman and Rep. John Lewis reflect on the historical roots, lasting legacy and bright future of the Children’s Defense Fund.
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