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 EdelmanNone of the candidates are ever perfect, ok? Then you have to get them in there and you have to hold them accountable. You have to make noises.
Marian Wright EdelmanJust 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 EdelmanI wasn't thinking about history. I was thinking about how we were going to end segregation at lunch counters in Atlanta, Georgia.We would have never thought about making history, we just thought: Here is our chance to get out our sense of rejection at this kind of racial discrimination. I don't know that there was a time that anybody growing up in the South wasn't enraged about being segregated and being discriminated against.
Marian Wright EdelmanWhy 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