Rising above manmade obstacles

Marian Wright Edelman talks about women's challenges in the new century.

By Kim Shippey

Marian Wright Edelman is president of the Children's Defense Fund in Washington, D.C. When she was growing up in the southern United States town of Bennettsville, South Carolina, the community was segregated. Yet she was "richly blessed" with devoted parents and community elders who "believed in God, in family, in education, and in helping others." Three of these community elders, all women, are mentioned in the dedication of her recently published "memoir of mentors," Lanterns (Beacon Press, Boston).

In her preface, Mrs. Edelman explains that the examples set by these women "make me stand up when I want to sit down, try one more time when I want to stop, and go out the door when I want to stay home and relax." No wonder she went on to qualify during her time at Spelman College, Atlanta, for a Merrill Fellowship, which funded a year of study and travel abroad. She returned to study at Yale Law School and, after graduation, worked as the first and only black woman lawyer in Mississippi during the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

Mrs. Edelman told us that in those turbulent years, she didn't set out to break ceilings. "Coming out of a family of faith and seeking to serve, I just tried, each step of the way, to respond to the needs I identified and to live out the precepts of my religion, which teaches that each of us is a child of God, and precious. We can look down on no other, and can let no other look down on us.

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