Marian Wright Edelman Quotes
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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.
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I've been struck by the upside-down priorities of the juvenile justice system. We are willing to spend the least amount of money to keep a kid at home, more to put him in a foster home and the most to institutionalize him.
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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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This act will leave a moral blot on his presidency.
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It is so important not to let ourselves off the hook or to become apathetic or cynical by telling ourselves that nothing works or makes a difference. Every day, light your small candle.... The inaction and actions of many human beings over a long time contributed to the crises our children face, and it is the action and struggle of many human beings over time that will solve them-with God's help. So every day, light your small candle.
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The literacy level at Mississippi prisons? Fifth grade. Can't read, what are you going to do? If you've got a conviction rap, what are you going to do? It's a real crisis.
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Homeless shelters, child hunger, and child suffering have become normalized in the richest nation on earth. It's time to reset our moral compass and redefine how we measure success.
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It's time for greatness - not for greed. It's a time for idealism - not ideology. It is a time not just for compassionate words, but compassionate action.
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Unless children have strong education and strong families and strong communities and decent housing, it's not enough to go sit in at a lunch counter.
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Children teach us to be courageous and to stand up against injustice.
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Education is a precondition to survival in America today.
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I've always hated being hemmed in or seeing anybody being hemmed in. Even when I was the smallest child, I couldn't bear being told I couldn't drink at a so-called white drinking fountain.
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I'd like to transform the system in very fundamental ways, but you've got to do that in every way that you can. You can't wait for some magic bullet or some magic politician or some magic anything to have that happen. You got to get out there and use your vote.
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It never occurred to me that I was not going to challenge segregation.
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In 1990, when we started the Black Community Crusade for Children, we were always talking about all children, but we paid particular attention to children who were not white, who were poor, who were disabled, and who were the most vulnerable.Parents didn't think their children would live to adulthood, and the children didn't think they were going to live to adulthood. That's when we started our first gun-violence campaign. We've lost 17 times more young black people to gun violence since 1968 than we lost in all the lynching in slavery.
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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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Children must have at least one person who believes in them. It could be a counselor, a teacher, a preacher, a friend. It could be you. You never know when a little love, a little support will plant a small seed of hope.
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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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Somehow we are going to have to develop a concept of enough for those at the top and at the bottom so that the necessities of the many are not sacrificed for the luxuries of the few.
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When I fight about what is going on in the neighborhood, or when I fight about what is happening to other people’s children, I’m doing that because I want to leave a community and a world that is better than the one I found.
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The old notion that children are the private property of parents dies very slowly. In reality, no parent raises a child alone. How many of us nice middle-class folk could make it without our mortgage reduction.
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You have to have a fundamental change in the culture of policing, and who is the police person. How do they change? How do you learn from England and the other places, or Australia? In England, they don't carry guns on the whole. It's a different kind of mentality that does not demonize, and it's justified on race and income and class.
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So much of the deep lingering sadness over President Kennedy's assassination is about the unfinished promise: unspoken speeches, unfulfilled hopes, the wondering about what might have been.
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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. The world wasn't so wonderful back then, with segregated rule in the South. But we were never hopeless and we never despaired because we had adults out there struggling with us, being there for us, and buffering us.