| 1 | Name: | Ms. Marian Wright Edelman | |
| Institution: | Children's Defense Fund | ||
| Year Elected: | 1994 | ||
| Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | ||
| Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1939 | ||
Marian Wright Edelman is founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) and has been an advocate for disadvantaged Americans for her entire professional life. Under her leadership, CDF has become the nation's strongest voice for children and families. A graduate of Spelman College and Yale Law School, Ms. Edelman began her career in the mid-60s when, as the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, she directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Jackson, Mississippi. In l968, she moved to Washington, D.C., as counsel for the Poor People's Campaign that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. began organizing before his death. She founded the Washington Research Project, a public interest law firm and the parent body of the Children's Defense Fund. For two years she served as the Director of the Center for Law and Education at Harvard University and in l973 began CDF. The recipient of over one hundred honorary degrees and many awards including the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize, the Heinz Award, a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship, the Harvard Graduate School's Medal of Education Impact (2013) and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal (2016), Ms. Edelman was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, in 2000. She has also been recognized with the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for her writings, which include nine books: Families in Peril: An Agenda for Social Change; The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours; Guide My Feet: Meditations and Prayers on Loving and Working for Children; Stand for Children; Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors; Hold My Hand: Prayers for Building a Movement to Leave No Child Behind; I'm Your Child, God: Prayers for Our Children; I Can Make a Difference: A Treasury to Inspire Our Children; and The Sea Is So Wide and My Boat Is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation. Ms. Edelman is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2015 she was honored with the Inaugural James M. Lawson Humanitarian Award and in 2017 with the Inamori Ethics Prize. | |||