Women's History Month: Marian Wright Edelman, a Voice for all Children

Born in Bennettsville, South Carolina in 1939, Edelman was heavily influenced by her father, a Baptist minister who taught his children that Christianity meant serving their community. He died when Edelman was 15; his parting words encouraging her to focus on her education. She attended Spelman College, a historically black liberal arts college for women in Atlanta, and studied abroad in Russia. As a college student, she became involved in the civil rights movement and was inspired to study law. She attended Yale Law School, and eventually became the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar.

By 1964, Edelman was heading the Mississippi office of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. While there, she was visited by Robert Kennedy and his advisor, Peter Edelman. She fell in love with Peter Edelman and in 1968 moved to Washington D.C., where the couple married. There she became involved in Dr. Martin Luther King's Poor People's Campaign, personally advising Dr. King before his assassination. Inspired by her interactions with Kennedy and Dr. King, Edelman helped form the Washington Research Project (WRP), a non-profit organization that monitored federal programs for low-income families.

WRP became the parent organization to what would become the Children's Defense Fund. In 1973, the Children's Defense Fund was founded, and Edelman and her new team began to research and define critical children's needs in all racial and income groups. Since then, the Children's Defense Fund has become the most powerful organization in the nation when it comes to ensuring that all of America's children have a healthy start, a safe start, a head start, a fair start, and a moral start.

Edelman continues to live in Washington D.C. with her husband Peter Edelman, a Professor at Georgetown Law School. They have three sons, Joshua, Jonah, and Ezra, and four grandchildren Ellika, Zoe, Elijah and Levi. She serves on several boards, including the Robin Hood Foundation and the Association to Benefit Children. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Philosophical Society, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. She has authored seven books.