Marian Wright Edelman Quotes & Sayings (Page 4)

“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.”

“I hadn't planned on going to law school. I wanted to study 19th-century Russian literature.”

“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.”

“It never occurred to me that I was not going to challenge segregation.”

“No one, Eleanor Roosevelt said, can make you feel inferior without your consent. Never give it.”

“Semi-automatic weapons have no socially redeeming purpose.”

“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.”

“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.”

“If things are too easy, life is a whole lot less interesting.”

“Service is what life is all about.”