Marian Wright Edelman

Brief‍

     Spelman College and Yale Law School graduate, the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar (1964), founder of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), and the first woman alum elected to the Yale University Corporation, Marian Wright Edelman (1939) has dedicated her life to advocating for children's rights and serving her community. Through her work with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), her private legal practice, and the establishment of the CDF, Edelman has been a driving force in shaping policies and legislation that protect and support children, leaving an indelible mark on the civil rights movement and American society.

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“We’re moving backwards and in many ways the black child faces one of the worst crises if not the worst crises since slavery and we can’t go backwards. We’re about to watch this prison pipeline undermine the last 50 years of progress. If you combine 70%  of children being born out of wedlock in the black community … if you look at 1 in 3 black boys going off to prison, 40% black children being born poor, and over 80% can’t read at grade level in 4th, 8th, and 12th grade, and 40% drop out, what is that? That is a new incarceration, that is a new slavery, that is a new apartheid.” - 2011