A biography for Marian Wright Edelmanhasn’t been written yet.
“It was clear to me as a civil rights leader in the '60s that unless we put the social and economic underpinnings beneath the political and the civil rights, we wouldn't go anywhere.”
“I'm tough in the sense that I believe as strongly in what I'm doing as anybody else believes in what they are doing.”
“Our true remembrance to President Kennedy is in our actions to honor the unspoken words and finish the unfinished work today and tomorrow and for as long as it takes.”
“Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time.”
“Children under five are the poorest age group in America, and one in four infants, toddlers and preschoolers are poor during the years of greatest brain development.”
“Service is what life is all about.”
“There should not be one new dime in tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires as long as millions of children in America are poor, hungry, uneducated and without health coverage.”
“You really can change the world if you care enough.”
“I grew up in a very religious family and it is the motivating force to every thing I do. I am fortunate to have had adults all around me who really lived their faith, in helping other people and doing the best you can do.”
“Hunger and malnutrition have devastating consequences for children and have been linked to low birth weight and birth defects, obesity, mental and physical health problems, and poorer educational outcomes.”
“Family and moral values are so central to everything that I am.”
“No person has the right to rain on your dreams.”
“Never work just for money or for power. They won't save your soul or help you sleep at night.”
“It never occurred to me that I was not going to challenge segregation.”
“Unless children have strong education and strong families and strong communities and decent housing, it's not enough to go sit in at a lunch counter.”
“No one, Eleanor Roosevelt said, can make you feel inferior without your consent. Never give it.”
“Remember and help America remember that the fellowship of human beings is more important than the fellowship of race and class and gender in a democratic society.”
“I worry about the kids who have too much. As a parent living in a so-called good neighborhood with children who went to private high school, I found myself spending much time in parent groups worrying about alcohol, unsupervised parties, and parents not being parents.”
“I try to act out of faith.”
“I've always hated being hemmed in or seeing anybody being hemmed in. Even when I was the smallest child, I couldn't bear being told I couldn't drink at a so-called white drinking fountain.”