Because of her tireless advocacy for children’s rights, Marian Wright Edelman will be the commencement speaker for the University’s 123rd spring graduation ceremony this Saturday at Hayward Field.
Edelman, the founder of the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF), is an exemplary candidate as the graduation speaker, said Dave Hubin, executive assistant to University President Dave Frohnmayer.
Known as the “children’s crusader,” Edelman will address how the University’s Class of 2000 can better serve its community and build strong resources for future generations, Hubin said.
“She is such a natural fit in the work that we’re trying to promote,” Hubin said.
To commend her efforts to help disadvantaged children, the University will present Edelman with an honorary doctorate degree, just the fourth to be given by the University in 54 years.
Edelman, a 1960 graduate of Spelman College and a 1963 graduate of the Yale law school, began practicing law when she became the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar.
As the director of the Legal Defense and Educational Fund for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Edelman represented activists of the civil-rights movement who were arrested. In 1968, she served as a counselor for the Poor People’s March, which was organized by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Edelman was also the director of Harvard University’s Center for Law and Education and the first black woman to serve on the board of directors at Yale.
She is the founder of the Washington Research Project, the parent organization of the CDF, which Edelman established in 1973.
The CDF, according to its mission statement, educates “the nation about the needs of children and encourages preventive investment before they get sick or into trouble, drop out of school, or suffer family breakdown.”
Edelman, the author of four children’s-rights books and an autobiography, has been recognized by several groups for her work.
As president of the organization, Edelman pursues CDF’s agenda in Congress and is credited with securing an increase in Medicaid coverage for poor children.
“Investing in and educating all American children is an urgent moral and practical imperative,” Edelman wrote in a recent CDF column. “If our democracy is to remain vibrant … then we must make America’s promise of fair opportunities and safe environments real right now to our children right here at home.”