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Luckily, I had incredible parents who, when they saw a problem, didn't say, Why doesn't somebody do something? They would say, Why don't we do something?.

Marian Wright Edelman

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Marian Wright Edelman
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: June 6
Activist
Lawyer
Writer
Bennettsville
South Carolina
Parents
Somebody
Parent
Doesn
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Problem
Luckily
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More quotes by 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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People who don't vote have no call on political leaders!
Marian Wright Edelman
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You didn't have a choice about the parents you inherited, but you do have a choice about the kind of parent you will be.
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I get very upset with all of the crowd seekers today, and people out there trying to get on TV. It ain't about you. It's about trying to make the world more just for everybody.
Marian Wright Edelman
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If parents snicker at racial and gender jokes, another generation will pass on the poison adults still have not had the courage to snuff out.
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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Children under five are the poorest age group in America, and one in four infants, toddlers and preschoolers are poor during the years of greatest brain development.
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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.
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Every day I wear my Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth medallions around my neck. When I think I'm having a bad day, I try to think about their day, and I get up.
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We must serve consciously as caring role models, emphasizing the ethic of service, not consumption.
Marian Wright Edelman
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A nation that does not stand for its children does not stand for anything and will not stand tall in the future.
Marian Wright Edelman
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In my generation, we learned how to be leaders by being exposed to and involved with adults who empowered us and gave us a sense that we could choose things. We've let down the generations coming behind us and we are trying to re- establish that connection.
Marian Wright Edelman
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The legacies that parents and church and teachers left to my generation of Black children were priceless but not material: a living faith reflected in daily service, the discipline of hard work and stick-to-itiveness, and a capacity to struggle in the face of adversity.
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
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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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The legacy I want to leave is a child-care system that says that no kid is going to be left alone or left unsafe.
Marian Wright Edelman
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Don't assume a door is closed push on it. Don't assume if it was closed yesterday that it is closed today. Don't ever stop learning and improving your mind. If you do, you're going to be left behind.
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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Education is a precondition to survival in America today.
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