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MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
NORTHEASTERN TECHNICAL COLLEGE
MARLBORO COUNTY
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MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
Marian Wright Edelman is a lifelong advocate for disadvantaged Americans and is the Founder and President of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF). Under her leadership, CDF has become the nation’s strongest voice for children and families.
• Mrs. Edelman graduated from Spelman College and Yale Law School. In the mid-60s, she was the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar and directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Jackson, Mississippi.
• She moved to Washington, D.C. in 1968 to become counsel for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Poor People's Campaign.
• Mrs. Edelman founded the Washington Research Project, a public interest law firm and the parent body of the Children's Defense Fund. She began CDF in 1973. She served as the Director of the Center for Law and Education at Harvard University for two years.
• She served on the Board of Trustees of Spelman College and chaired the Board from 1976 to 1987. She was the first woman elected by alumni as a member of the Yale University Corporation on which she served from 1971 to 1977.
• She has received over one hundred honorary degrees and many awards including the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize, the Heinz Award, and a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship.
• 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.
• She is a board member of the Robin Hood Foundation, the Association to Benefit Children, and City Lights School and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
She is married to Peter Edelman, a Professor at Georgetown Law School. They have three sons, Joshua, Jonah, and Ezra, two granddaughters, Ellika and Zoe, and two grandsons Elijah and Levi.