ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Marian Wright Edelman - Child advocate
Marian Wright Edelman fights for a level playing field for all children, so their chances to succeed don't have to depend on the lottery of birth.

Why you should listen

Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president emerita of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), has been an advocate for disadvantaged Americans for her entire professional life. Under her leadership, CDF has become the nation's strongest voice for children and families. The CDF's "Leave No Child Behind" mission is "to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities."

Edelman, a graduate of Spelman College and Yale Law School, began her career in the mid-'60s when, as the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, she directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1968, she moved to Washington, DC as counsel for the Poor People's Campaign that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. began organizing before his death. She founded the Washington Research Project, a public interest law firm and the parent body of the CDF. For two years she served as the director of the Center for Law and Education at Harvard University and in 1973 began CDF. Edelman served on the Board of Trustees of Spelman College, which she chaired from 1976 to 1987, and was the first woman elected by alumni as a member of the Yale University Corporation, on which she served from 1971 to 1977. She has received more than 100 honorary degrees and many awards, including the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize, the Heinz Award, a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship, the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- the nation's highest civilian award -- and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for her writings.

More profile about the speaker
Marian Wright Edelman | Speaker | TED.com
Pat Mitchell - Curator, connector, convener and advocate for women's leadership
Pat Mitchell is a lifelong advocate for women and girls, known for her work as a journalist, producer, television executive and curator.

Why you should listen

Pat Mitchell began her media career in print (at LOOK) and transitioned to television as opportunities opened up for women in the early 1970s. She was among the first women to anchor the news (WBZ-TV Boston) and host a morning talk show (Woman 74). She was the first woman to own, produce and host a national talk show, the Emmy-winning Woman to Woman, which also became the first television series to be placed in the archives of the Harvard-Radcliffe Schlesinger Library on the History of Women.

As the head of Ted Turner's documentary division, the programs she commissioned garnered 37 Emmys, five Peabodys and two Academy Award nominations. In 2000, she became the first woman President and CEO of the Public Broadcasting System. She led PBS through the transition to digital broadcasting, sustained government funding and added many new original series to the national schedule. As head of the Paley Center for Media in New York and Los Angeles, she guided an institution that leads discussion about the cultural, creative and social significance of media. Now as an independent consultant and curator, Mitchell advises foundations and corporations on issues of women’s empowerment and leadership development as well as media relations and governance. Mitchell is a trustee of the Skoll Foundation and Participant Media; chair of the Sundance Institute Board and Women's Media Center and a board member of the Acumen Fund.

In 2010, Mitchell launched and co-hosted the first TEDWomen and for the succeeding seven years, in partnership with the TED organization, Mitchell has curated and hosted TEDxWomen and TEDWomen conferences.

More profile about the speaker
Pat Mitchell | Speaker | TED.com
TEDWomen 2018

Marian Wright Edelman: Reflections from a lifetime fighting to end child poverty

Filmed:
1,353,803 views

What does it take to build a national movement? In a captivating conversation with TEDWomen curator Pat Mitchell, Marian Wright Edelman reflects on her path to founding the Children's Defense Fund in 1973 -- from the early influence of growing up in the segregated American South to her activism with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. -- and shares how growing older has only made her more radical.
- Child advocate
Marian Wright Edelman fights for a level playing field for all children, so their chances to succeed don't have to depend on the lottery of birth. Full bio - Curator, connector, convener and advocate for women's leadership
Pat Mitchell is a lifelong advocate for women and girls, known for her work as a journalist, producer, television executive and curator. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:12
Pat Mitchell: I know you don't like
that "legend" business.
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Marian Wright Edelman: I don't.
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(Laughter)
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PM: Why not, Marian?
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Because you are somewhat of a legend.
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You've been doing this for a long time,
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and you're still there
as founder and president.
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MWE: Well, because my daddy raised us
and my mother raised us to serve,
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and we are servant-leaders.
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And it is not about
external things or labels,
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and I feel like the luckiest
person in the world
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having been born at the intersection
of great needs and great injustices
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and great opportunities to change them.
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So I just feel very grateful
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that I could serve and make a difference.
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PM: What a beautiful way of saying it.
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(Applause)
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You grew up in the American South,
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and like all children,
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a lot of who you became
was molded by your parents.
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Tell me: What did they teach you
about movement-building?
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MWE: I had extraordinary parents.
I was so lucky.
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My mother was the best
organizer I ever knew.
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And she always insisted,
even back then, on having her own dime.
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She started her dairy
so that she could have her penny,
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and that sense of independence
has certainly been passed on to me.
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My daddy was a minister,
and they were real partners.
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And my oldest sibling is a sister,
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I'm the youngest,
and there are three boys in between.
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But I always knew I was
as smart as my brothers.
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I always was a tomboy.
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I always had the same
high aspirations that they had.
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But most importantly,
we were terribly blessed,
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even though we were growing up
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in a very segregated
small town in South Carolina --
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we knew it was wrong.
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I always knew, from the time
I was four years old,
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that I wasn't going to accept
being put into slots.
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But Daddy and Mama always
had the sense that it was not us,
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it was the outside world,
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but you have the capacity
to grow up to change it,
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and I began to do that very early on.
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But most importantly,
they were the best role models,
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because they said: if you see a need,
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don't ask why somebody doesn't do it.
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See what you can do.
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There was no home for the aged
in our hometown.
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And Reverend Reddick, who had what we know
now, 50 years later, as Alzheimer's,
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and he began to wander the streets.
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And so Daddy and Mama figured out
he needed a place to go,
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so we started a home for the aged.
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Children had to cook and clean and serve.
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We didn't like it at the time,
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but that's how we learned
that it was our obligation
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to take care of those
who couldn't take care of themselves.
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I had 12 foster sisters and brothers.
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My mother took them in after we left home,
and she took them in before we left home.
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And again, whenever you see a need,
you try to fulfill it.
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God runs, Daddy used to say,
a full employment economy.
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(Laughter)
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And so if you just follow the need,
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you will never lack for something to do
or a real purpose in life.
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And every issue that the Children's
Defense Fund works on today
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comes out of my childhood
in a very personal way.
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Little Johnny Harrington,
who lived three doors down from me,
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stepped on a nail;
he lived with his grandmother,
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got tetanus, went to the hospital,
no tetanus shots, he died.
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He was 11 years old.
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I remember that.
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An accident in front of our highway,
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turns out to have been
two white truck drivers
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and a migrant family
that happened to be black.
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We all ran out to help.
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It was in the front of a church,
and the ambulance came,
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saw that the white
truck drivers were not injured,
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saw the black migrant workers were,
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turned around and left them.
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I never forgot that.
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And immunizations
was one of the first things
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I worked on at the Children's Defense Fund
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to make sure that every child gets
immunized against preventable diseases.
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Unequal schools ...
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(Applause)
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Separate and unequal,
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hand-me-downs from the white schools.
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But we always had books in our house.
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Daddy was a great reader.
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He used to make me
read every night with him.
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I'd have to sit for 15 or 20 minutes.
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One day I put a "True Confessions"
inside a "Life Magazine"
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and he asked me to read it out loud.
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I never read a "True Confessions" again.
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(Laughter)
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But they were great readers.
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We always had books
before we had a second pair of shoes,
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and that was very important.
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And although we had hand-me-down
books for the black schools
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and hand-me-down everythings,
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it was a great need.
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He made it clear that reading
was the window to the outside world,
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and so that was a great gift from them.
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But the reinforced lesson was that God
runs a full employment economy,
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and that if you just follow the need,
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you will never lack for a purpose in life,
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and that has been so for me.
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We had a very segregated small town.
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I was a rebel from the time
I was four or five.
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I went out to a department store
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and there was "white"
and "black" water signs,
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but I didn't know that
and didn't pay much attention to that,
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and I was with one
of my Sunday school teachers.
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I drank out of the wrong water fountain,
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and she jerked me away,
and I didn't know what had happened,
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and then she explained to me
about black and white water.
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I didn't know that, and after that,
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I went home, took my little
wounded psyche to my parents,
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and told them what had happened,
and said, "What's wrong with me?"
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And they said,
"It wasn't much wrong with you.
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It's what's wrong with the system."
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And I used to go then secretly
and switch water signs
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everywhere I went.
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(Laughter)
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And it felt so good.
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(Applause)
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PM: There is no question
that this legend is a bit of a rebel,
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and has been for a long time.
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So you started your work as an attorney
and with the Civil Rights Movement,
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and you worked with Dr. King
on the original Poor People's Campaign.
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And then you made
this decision, 45 years ago,
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to set up a national advocacy
campaign for children.
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Why did you choose that
particular service, to children?
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MWE: Well, because so many of the things
that I saw in Mississippi
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and across the South
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had to do with children.
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I saw children with bloated
bellies in this country
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who were close to starvation,
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who were hungry,
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who were without clothes,
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and nobody wanted to believe
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that there were children
who were starving,
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and that's a slow process.
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And nobody wanted to listen.
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Every congressman
that would come to Mississippi,
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I'd say, "Go see," and most of them
didn't want to do anything about it.
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But I saw grinding poverty.
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The state of Mississippi wanted,
during voter registration efforts --
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and with outside white kids coming in
to help black citizens register to vote --
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they wanted everybody to leave the state,
so they were trying to starve them out.
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And they switched
from free food commodities
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to food stamps that cost two dollars.
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People had no income, and nobody
in America wanted to believe
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that there was anybody
in America without any income.
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Well, I knew hundreds of them,
thousands of them.
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And malnutrition
was becoming a big problem.
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And so one of these days
came Dr. King down
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on a number of things we were fighting
to get the Head Start program --
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which the state
of Mississippi turned down --
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refinanced.
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And he went into a center
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that the poor community
was running without any help,
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and he saw a teacher carve up an apple
for eight or 10 children,
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and he had to run out,
because he was in tears.
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He couldn't believe it.
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But only when Robert Kennedy
decided he would come --
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I had gone to testify
about the Head Start program,
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because they were attacking.
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And I asked, please,
come and see yourself,
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and when you come and see,
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see hungry people
and see starving children.
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And they came, and he brought the press,
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and that began to get the movement going.
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But they wanted to push
all the poor people to go north
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and to get away from being voters.
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And I'm proud of Mike Espy.
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Even though he lost last night,
he'll win one of these days.
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(Applause)
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But you wouldn't have seen
such grinding poverty,
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and the outside white kids
who'd come in to help register voters
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in the 1964 Summer Project
where we lost those three young men.
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But once they left, the press left,
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and there was just massive need,
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and people were trying
to push the poor out.
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And so, you know, Head Start came,
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and we applied for it,
because the state turned it down.
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And that's true of a lot of states
that don't take Medicaid these days.
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And we ran the largest
Head Start program in the nation,
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and it changed their lives.
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They had books that had children
who looked like them in it,
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and we were attacked all over the place.
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But the bottom line
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was that Mississippi
gave birth to the Children's Defense Fund
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in many ways,
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and it also occurred to me that children
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and preventive investment,
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and avoiding costly care
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and failure and neglect,
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was a more strategic way to proceed.
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And so the Children's Defense Fund
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was born out of
the Poor People's Campaign.
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But it was pretty clear
that whatever you called
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black independent or brown independent
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was going to have
a shrinking constituency.
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And who can be mad at a two-month-old baby
or at a two-year-old toddler?
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A lot of people can be.
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They don't want to feed them,
neither, from what we've seen.
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But it was the right judgment to make.
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And so out of the privilege of serving
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as the Poor People's Campaign
coordinator for policy
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for two years, and there were two of them,
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and it was not a failure,
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because the seeds of change get planted
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and have to have people
who are scut workers and follow up.
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And I'm a good scut worker
and a persistent person.
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And you know, as a result,
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I would say that all those people
on food stamps today
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ought to thank those poor people
in the mud in Resurrection City.
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But it takes a lot of follow-up,
detailed work -- and never going away.
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PM: And you've been doing it for 45 years,
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and you've seen some amazing outcomes.
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What are you proudest of
out of the Children's Defense Fund?
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MWE: Well, I think the children now
have sort of become a mainstream issue.
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We have got lots of new laws.
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Millions of children are getting food.
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Millions of children
are getting a head start.
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Millions of children
are getting Head Start
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and have gotten a head start,
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and the Child Health
Insurance Program, CHIP,
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Medicaid expansions for children.
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We've been trying to reform
the child welfare system for decades.
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We finally got a big
breakthrough this year,
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and it says, be ready with the proposals
when somebody's ready to move,
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and sometimes it takes five years,
10 years, 20 years, but you're there.
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I've been trying to keep children
out of foster care and out of institutions
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and with their families,
with preventive services.
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That got passed.
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But there are millions
of children who have hope,
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who have access to early childhood.
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Now, we are not finished,
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and we are not going to ever feel finished
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until we end child poverty
in the richest nation on earth.
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It's just ridiculous
that we have to be demanding that.
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(Applause)
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PM: And there are so many of the problems
in spite of the successes,
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and thank you for going through
some of them, Marian --
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the Freedom Schools,
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the generations of children now
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who have gone through
Children's Defense Fund programs.
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11:25
But when you look around the world,
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11:27
in this country, the United States,
and in other countries,
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there are still so many problems.
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What worries you the most?
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MWE: What worries me is how irresponsible
we adults in power have been
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in passing on a healthier earth.
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11:44
And it worries me when I read
the "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists"
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11:47
and see now that we are
two minutes from midnight,
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3431
11:51
and that's gotten closer.
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1228
11:52
We have put our future
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11:55
and our children's future
and safety at risk
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11:59
in a world that is still
too much governed by violence.
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12:03
We must end that.
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12:04
We must stop investing in war and start
investing in the young and in peace,
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12:09
and we are really so far away
from doing that.
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12:11
(Applause)
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And I don't want my grandchildren
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12:17
to have to fight
these battles all over again,
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12:19
and so I get more radical.
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12:21
The older I get, the more radical I get,
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12:23
because there are just some things
that we as adults have to do
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3193
12:27
for the next generations.
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12:28
And I looked at
the sacrifices of Mrs. Hamer
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12:30
and all those people in Mississippi
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12:32
who risked their lives
to give us a better life.
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12:35
But the United States
has got to come to grips
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12:37
with its failure to invest
in its children,
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12:40
and it's the Achilles' heel
of this nation.
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12:43
How can you be one of the biggest
economies in the world
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12:46
and you let 13.2 million children
go live in poverty,
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12:51
and you let children go homeless
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12:53
when you've got the means to do it?
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12:55
We've got to rethink
who we are as a people,
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12:58
be an example for the world.
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12:59
There should be no poverty.
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13:01
In fact, we want to say we're going
to end poverty in the world.
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13:04
Just start at home.
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13:05
And we've made real progress,
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13:07
but it's such hard work,
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13:09
and it's going to be our Achilles' heel.
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13:11
We should stop giving more tax cuts,
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13:14
sorry folks, to billionaires
rather than to babies
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13:16
and their health care.
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13:18
We should get our priorities straight.
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2174
13:20
(Applause)
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1001
13:21
That's not right,
and it's not cost-effective.
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2729
13:24
And the key to this country is going
to be an educated child population,
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13:28
and yet we've got so many children
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1667
13:29
who cannot read or write
at the most basic levels.
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13:32
We're investing in the wrong things,
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1940
13:34
and I wouldn't be upset
about anybody having one billion,
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3356
13:37
10 billion [US dollars],
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1151
13:38
if there were no hungry children,
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2237
13:40
if there were no homeless children,
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2028
13:42
if there were no uneducated children.
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13:45
And so it's really about
what does it mean to live
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13:47
and lead this life.
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13:49
Why were we put on this earth?
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13:51
We were put on this earth
to make things better
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13:54
for the next generations.
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1215
13:55
And here we're worrying
about climate change
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2455
13:58
and global warming.
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1506
13:59
And we're looking at, again,
I constantly cite --
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2916
14:02
I look at that "Bulletin
of Atomic Scientists" every year.
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2925
14:05
And it says now:
"Two minutes to midnight."
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2053
14:07
Are we out of our minds, adults,
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1574
14:09
about passing on a better a world
to our children?
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4052
14:13
That's what our purpose is,
to leave a better world for everybody,
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3096
14:16
and the concept of enough for everybody.
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3053
14:19
There should be
no hungry children in this world
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2261
14:21
with the rich wealth that we have.
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1636
14:23
And so I can't think of a bigger cause,
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2258
14:25
and I think that I'm driven by my faith.
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3111
14:28
And it's been a privilege to serve,
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2024
14:30
but I always had the best
role models in the world.
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2983
14:33
Daddy always said God
runs a full employment economy,
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3655
14:37
and that if you just follow the need,
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2353
14:39
you'll never lack for a purpose in life.
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14:41
And I watched the partnership --
because my mother was a true partner.
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14:45
I always knew I was
as smart as my brothers, at least.
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2958
14:48
And we always knew that we were not
just to be about ourselves,
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4644
14:52
but that we were here to serve.
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1943
14:54
PM: Well, Marian, I want to say,
on behalf of all the world's children,
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3413
14:58
thank you for your passion,
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15:00
your purpose and your advocacy.
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2071
15:02
(Applause)
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5649

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Marian Wright Edelman - Child advocate
Marian Wright Edelman fights for a level playing field for all children, so their chances to succeed don't have to depend on the lottery of birth.

Why you should listen

Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president emerita of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), has been an advocate for disadvantaged Americans for her entire professional life. Under her leadership, CDF has become the nation's strongest voice for children and families. The CDF's "Leave No Child Behind" mission is "to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities."

Edelman, a graduate of Spelman College and Yale Law School, began her career in the mid-'60s when, as the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, she directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1968, she moved to Washington, DC as counsel for the Poor People's Campaign that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. began organizing before his death. She founded the Washington Research Project, a public interest law firm and the parent body of the CDF. For two years she served as the director of the Center for Law and Education at Harvard University and in 1973 began CDF. Edelman served on the Board of Trustees of Spelman College, which she chaired from 1976 to 1987, and was the first woman elected by alumni as a member of the Yale University Corporation, on which she served from 1971 to 1977. She has received more than 100 honorary degrees and many awards, including the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize, the Heinz Award, a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship, the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- the nation's highest civilian award -- and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for her writings.

More profile about the speaker
Marian Wright Edelman | Speaker | TED.com
Pat Mitchell - Curator, connector, convener and advocate for women's leadership
Pat Mitchell is a lifelong advocate for women and girls, known for her work as a journalist, producer, television executive and curator.

Why you should listen

Pat Mitchell began her media career in print (at LOOK) and transitioned to television as opportunities opened up for women in the early 1970s. She was among the first women to anchor the news (WBZ-TV Boston) and host a morning talk show (Woman 74). She was the first woman to own, produce and host a national talk show, the Emmy-winning Woman to Woman, which also became the first television series to be placed in the archives of the Harvard-Radcliffe Schlesinger Library on the History of Women.

As the head of Ted Turner's documentary division, the programs she commissioned garnered 37 Emmys, five Peabodys and two Academy Award nominations. In 2000, she became the first woman President and CEO of the Public Broadcasting System. She led PBS through the transition to digital broadcasting, sustained government funding and added many new original series to the national schedule. As head of the Paley Center for Media in New York and Los Angeles, she guided an institution that leads discussion about the cultural, creative and social significance of media. Now as an independent consultant and curator, Mitchell advises foundations and corporations on issues of women’s empowerment and leadership development as well as media relations and governance. Mitchell is a trustee of the Skoll Foundation and Participant Media; chair of the Sundance Institute Board and Women's Media Center and a board member of the Acumen Fund.

In 2010, Mitchell launched and co-hosted the first TEDWomen and for the succeeding seven years, in partnership with the TED organization, Mitchell has curated and hosted TEDxWomen and TEDWomen conferences.

More profile about the speaker
Pat Mitchell | Speaker | TED.com