Marian Wright Edelman is founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, a national children’s advocacy organization in Washington, D.C. 

In 2000, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for her writings which include: 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

Posts By This Author

From the Archives: January 2009

by Marian Wright Edelman 04-25-2018
Dear President Obama

WHILE Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be enormously proud of the strides our nation has made over the past 40 years, especially the country’s inspiring and groundbreaking election of our first black president, he would be calling on the president, the Congress, and all of us to mount a national, multiracial campaign to free the 36.5 million Americans of all races and places from the noose of poverty driven by low-wage work and to end racial disparities still prevalent in all areas of American life.

Today there are 36.5 million poor people in America, including 13 million children, although our gross domestic product is three times larger than in 1968. He would be pushing our new leaders, and all of us, to achieve long overdue health care for all, beginning with all children and pregnant women; to end the “Cradle to Prison Pipeline” that will afflict 1 in 3 black and 1 in 6 Latino boys born in 2001 unless we act together with urgency to dismantle it; to expand proven parent-child support programs and establish a high-quality comprehensive early childhood development system ...

We know what to do to end poverty, child illiteracy, and hunger and to ensure every child and person health coverage and job-rich, safe communities. Finding the spiritual and political will to do what is right and economically sensible and necessary is the challenge you and I and our new leaders face.

A Christmas Prayer: O God of All Children

by Marian Wright Edelman 12-30-2013
Ppatty/Shutterstock

'Help us to love and respect and protect them all' Ppatty/Shutterstock

Let us remember all the poor babies and children who struggle to live and realize their God given potential in our own rich land and all around the world today. And commit to act to assure hope and justice for them all.

O God of the children of Somalia, Sudan, and Syria, of South Africa and South Carolina,
Of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and of India, Iraq, Iran, and Israel
Of the Congo and Chicago, of Darfur and Detroit
Of Myanmar and Mississippi and Louisiana and Yemen
Help us to love and respect and protect them all.

Dear President Obama

Memos to the new president from political, cultural, and religious leaders.

Leaders Are Only as Strong as the Citizens Who Raise Their Voices

by Marian Wright Edelman 11-06-2008
On the day he died, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called his mother to give her his next Sunday's sermon title.

A Victory!

by Marian Wright Edelman 07-01-2001
The refundable tax credit will help 500,000 children in poverty.

An Unfinished Symphony

by Marian Wright Edelman 03-01-1995
God's unchanging call to heal and to care.