Quote

So much of America's tragic and costly failure to care for all its children stems from our tendency to distinguish between our own children and other people's children--as if justice were divisible.

Marian Wright Edelman

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Marian Wright Edelman
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: June 6
Activist
Lawyer
Writer
Bennettsville
South Carolina
Justice
Stems
America
Costly
Care
Distinguish
Children
Stem
Much
Tendency
People
Tendencies
Tragic
Failure
Divisible

More quotes by Marian Wright Edelman

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If we think we have ours and don't owe any time or money or effort to help those left behind, then we are a part of the problem rather than the solution to the fraying social fabric that threatens all Americans and the very dream that is America.
Marian Wright Edelman
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People want to pick the leader, and we are obsessed with celebrity and whoever is on the cover of this or that.
Marian Wright Edelman
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In politics, there are no friends.
Marian Wright Edelman
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In trying to make a big difference, don't ignore the small daily differences we can make.
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When President Kennedy was elected, many black Americans, like so many Americans, were captivated by his youth and energy and promise and were especially hopeful that he might move the country in a new direction on civil rights.
Marian Wright Edelman
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You can achieve much in life if you don't mind doing the work and giving someone else the credit.
Marian Wright Edelman
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The crisis of children having children has been eclipsed by the greater crisis of children killing children.
Marian Wright Edelman
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Understand and be confident that each of us can make a difference by caring and acting in small as well as big ways.
Marian Wright Edelman
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So often we think we have got to make a difference and be a big dog. Let us just try to be little fleas biting. Enough fleas biting strategically can make a big dog very uncomfortable.
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It really takes a community to raise children, no matter how much money one has. Nobody can do it well alone. And it's the bedrock security of community that we and our children need.
Marian Wright Edelman
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You can't tell parents to teach children the value of work when we don't have jobs and the jobs we have don't pay a decent wage. You can't tell children to achieve and then let them go to broken-down schools with teachers who don't care. We need a consistency of values in our public, corporate, and private lives.
Marian Wright Edelman
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I try to be a person of faith.
Marian Wright Edelman
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It never occurred to me that I was not going to challenge segregation.
Marian Wright Edelman
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Be real. Try to do what you say, say what you mean, and be what you seem.
Marian Wright Edelman
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What's wrong with our children? Adults telling children to be honest while lying and cheating. Adults telling children to not be violent while marketing and glorifying violence... I believe that adult hypocrisy is the biggest problem children face in America.
Marian Wright Edelman
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I hope that people of all faiths will start looking for our too-invisible children who are crying out for help.
Marian Wright Edelman
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I grew up in a very religious family and it is the motivating force to every thing I do. I am fortunate to have had adults all around me who really lived their faith, in helping other people and doing the best you can do.
Marian Wright Edelman
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Don't count out Marian Wright Edelman, because there is talk that President Clinton may want to shock the nation by putting a real black on the Supreme Court.
Marian Wright Edelman
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As I contemplate the kind of future I want for children-my own and other people's-I believe we must look inward to God for guidance and strength and backward to draw on the values and legacies of our families, ancestors, and communities.
Marian Wright Edelman
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It's deeply rooted in the American psyche. Black men have always been viewed as the other, which leads to a different application of the laws. The current laws are an obscenity. More black men are locked up for using pot than white folk are for far more serious crimes.
Marian Wright Edelman