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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
Doesn
Didn
Luckily
Problem
Incredible
Something
Saws
Would
Parents
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Parent

More quotes by 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.
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I hadn't planned on going to law school. I wanted to study 19th-century Russian literature.
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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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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.
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Be real. Try to do what you say, say what you mean, and be what you seem.
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If we don't stand up for children, then we don't stand for much.
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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.
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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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Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it.
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Never work just for money or for power. They won't save your soul or help you sleep at night.
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Be a good ancestor. Stand for something bigger than yourself. Add value to the Earth during your sojourn.
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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.
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It is a spiritually impoverished nation that permits infants and children to be the poorest Americans.
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People who don't vote have no call on political leaders!
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It is the responsibility of every adult... to make sure that children hear what we have learned from the lessons of life and to hear over and over that we love them and that they are not alone.
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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.
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The challenge of social justice is to evoke a sense of community that we need to make our nation a better place, just as we make it a safer place.
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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 worry about the kids who have too much. As a parent living in a so-called good neighborhood with children who went to private high school, I found myself spending much time in parent groups worrying about alcohol, unsupervised parties, and parents not being parents. We've got to send messages to our kids about what is important.
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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