Marian Wright Edelman

South Carolina · born or raisedBorn 1939

American activist for children's rights (born 1939)

Born in Bennettsville

Quotations with a citation

Caring black adults were buffers against the segregated prison of the outside world that told me, as a black girl, that I wasn't worth very much. But I didn't believe it because my parents said it wasn't so, my preacher (my daddy) said it wasn't so, and my teachers said it wasn't so. The childhood message I internalized was that, as God's child, no man or woman could look down on me, and I could look down on no man or woman.

We were taught that the world had a lot of problems, but we could struggle and change them; that intellectual and material gifts brought both the privilege and responsibility of sharing with others less fortunate, and that service is the rent every one of us pays for living. It's the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time or after you've reached your personal goals or earned that first million or billion.

I was 14 the night my daddy died with holes in his shoes. He had two children who'd graduated from college, another in college, another in divinity school, and a vision he was able to convey to me even dying in an ambulance--that I, a young black girl, could do and be anything, that race and gender are shadows, and that character, self-discipline, determination, attitude and service are the substance of life

Don't assume a door is closed; push on it. Don't assume if it was closed yesterday that it is closed today; push on it again.

Learn to be quiet enough to hear the sound of the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it within other people.