Marian Wright Edelman (born June 6 , 1939, in , Bennettsville, South Carolina) is the American president and founder of the Children's Defense Fund.

Her thinking was influenced by her father, Arthur Wright, a Baptist preacher who taught that Christianity required service in this world and by A. Philip Randolph.

A graduate of Spelman College and Yale Law School, Edelman worked for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Poor People's March on Washington, and on a variety of other civil rights and public interest causes before founding the Children's Defense Fund in 1973. She was the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar.

Edelman is a recipient of the Silver Buffalo Award, the highest adult award given by the Boy Scouts of America. Edelman received a LL.D. from Bates College in 1986.

In an interview with Shelly R. Fredman on AlterNet, Howard Zinn suggests she would make a better Democratic Presidential Candidate than Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.^*

External links

• Biography page at CDF
• http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/blbio_marian_wright_edelman.htm

1939 births | Living people | African Americans | Delta Sigma Theta sisters | MacArthur Fellows | Recipients of the Thomas Merton Award | Silver Buffalo awardees | Alumnae of women's colleges