do justice

the service & justice profiles: marian wright edelman September 14, 2009

“A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back — but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you.”

So said Marian Wright Edelman—social activist and advocate for poor, minority and disabled children. Edelman was born in South Carolina and worked on the Civil Rights Movement. When Edelman moved to Washington D.C. in 1968, she helped organize the Poor People’s Campaign that Martin Luther King Jr. had started and became interested in issues regarding poverty and children. So she founded the Children’s Defense Fund, which operates as a research institution and an advocacy for children in need.

{check it out: http://www.childrensdefense.org}

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• Founded the Washington Research Project, a public interest law firm
• First black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar
• Received the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom
• Serves on the board for: the Robin Hood Foundation, Association to Benefit Children, and City Lights School

Selected Publications:
Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors
The State of America’s Children
I’m Your Child, God: Prayers for Children and Teenagers
I Can Make a Difference: A Treasury to Inspire Our Children
The Sea Is so Wide and My Boat Is so Small

One of her most well-known statements:
“Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time.”

Service is our rent to Be.

…What do you think?