Women In Public Service (audio)

Marian Wright Edelman is the founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund and one of the most respected voices for children in the nation. The youngest daughter of a Baptist minister, she developed a sense of mission while growing up in a small segregated South Carolina town. Edelman later entered Spelman College and became involved in the civil rights movement and realized that "helping others would be the very purpose of life." After being arrested for her activism, she decided to study law and enrolled at Yale Law School. Edelman became the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi bar. In 1968, she moved to Washington, D.C. and helped organize the Poor People's Campaign of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1973, Edelman founded the Children’s Defense Fund as a voice for poor, minority and disabled children. She single-handedly championed the cause of children and expanded Head Start and Medicaid coverage for children and helped to combat hunger among