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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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Marian Wright Edelman
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: June 6
Activist
Lawyer
Writer
Bennettsville
South Carolina
Kind
Strength
Contemplating
Believe
Community
Inward
People
Values
Guidance
Future
Communities
Legacies
Look
Legacy
Contemplate
Looks
Families
Backward
Must
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Ancestors
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More quotes by Marian Wright Edelman

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We have the capacity to make sure that every mother has pre-natal care. Yet, we don't do it. What is it about America? It says we don't value children and families. We are hypocrites.
Marian Wright Edelman
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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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Whoever said anyone has the right to give up.
Marian Wright Edelman
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It's the new slavery. It came out of the drug laws and it really is something we're going to have to confront, but I don't see enough people up in arms about that. We need to be.
Marian Wright Edelman
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Why are guns the only unregulated consumer products in America? We regulate toy guns and teddy bears, but we do not regulate a product that kills 4,600 children a year.
Marian Wright Edelman
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Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it.
Marian Wright Edelman
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It is a spiritually impoverished nation that permits infants and children to be the poorest Americans.
Marian Wright Edelman
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Amidst protestations of 'Who can be against the children?' too few people are FOR children when it really matters.
Marian Wright Edelman
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God did not create two classes of children or human beings-only one.
Marian Wright Edelman
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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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In trying to make a big difference, don't ignore the small daily differences we can make.
Marian Wright Edelman
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Hope is the best contraceptive.
Marian Wright Edelman
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No person has the right to rain on your dreams.
Marian Wright Edelman
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It was very clear to me in 1965, in Mississippi, that, as a lawyer, I could get people into schools, desegregate the schools, but if they were kicked off the plantations - and if they didn't have food, didn't have jobs, didn't have health care, didn't have the means to exercise those civil rights, we were not going to have success.
Marian Wright Edelman
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Black women rock the cradle, and whoever rocks the cradle rocks the future.
Marian Wright Edelman
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Just because a child's parents are poor or uneducated is no reason to deprive the child of basic human rights to health care, education and proper nutrition.
Marian Wright Edelman
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If we don't stand up for children, then we don't stand for much.
Marian Wright Edelman
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We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.
Marian Wright Edelman
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Education remains one of the black community's most enduring values. It is sustained by the belief that freedom and education go hand in hand, that learning and training are essential to economic quality and independence.
Marian Wright Edelman
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Don't wait for, expect, or rely on favors. Count on earning them by hard work and perseverance.
Marian Wright Edelman