Marian Wright Edelman
Marian Wright Edelman
Marian Wright Edelmanis an American activist for the rights of children. She has been an advocate for disadvantaged Americans for her entire professional life. She is president and founder of the Children's Defense Fund...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth6 June 1939
CountryUnited States of America
famous-inspirational life-is
Service is what life is all about.
family education children
Parents have become so convinced that educators know what is best for their children that they forget that they themselves are really the experts.
people leader obsessed
People want to pick the leader, and we are obsessed with celebrity and whoever is on the cover of this or that.
graduation kindness children
Being considerate of others will take your children further in life than any college degree.
people drug slavery
It's the new slavery. It came out of the drug laws and it really is something we're going to have to confront, but I don't see enough people up in arms about that. We need to be.
change inspiring peace
If you don't like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time.
children community
I also grew up with community co-parents who looked out for each other. They looked out for children and tried to be the hands of God. They tried to live their faith.
growing-up kids parent
The outside world told black kids when I was growing up that we weren't worth anything. But our parents said it wasn't so, and our churches and our schoolteachers said it wasn't so. They believed in us, and we, therefore, believed in ourselves.
dog people focus
When I started out as an activist, the issues were much clearer. There's advantage to the new media, but on the other hand, you miss the ability to frame an issue that you had when there were just three TV networks: CBS, NBC, and ABC. So the whole world could see the same police dogs. The same Bull Connor and his white tank. Now you've got narrow-casting. The media is all fragmented. It's so hard to get people to focus in a sustained way.
people luther single-people
[Martin Luther ] King didn't pick his leadership position. Most movements are not started by single people.
earth add bigger
Be a good ancestor. Stand for something bigger than yourself. Add value to the Earth during your sojourn.
perfect feelings lucky
I feel very lucky to have grown up having interaction with adults who were making change but who were far from perfect beings. That feeling of not being paralyzed by your incredible inadequacy as a human being, which I feel every day, is a part of the legacy that I've gotten from so many of the adult elders.
cheating children lying
What's wrong with our children? Adults telling children to be honest while lying and cheating. Adults telling children to not be violent while marketing and glorifying violence... I believe that adult hypocrisy is the biggest problem children face in America.
giving-up children sacrifice
The civil-rights movement was completely impossible to achieve. But look at what ordinary people were able to do because they were willing to sacrifice their lives to stay with it. They didn't expect a political process to respond to them. They made the political process respond to them. To say "It's so bad I won't bother" is to give up on your children and give up on your future.