'Intimate Portrait' Of Children's Defense Fund's Marian Wright Edelman To Appear On Lifetime Television

2/12/2002

From: Gigi Hinton of the Children's Defense Fund, 202-662-3609

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 -- The life and achievements of Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund, will be chronicled in an "Intimate Portrait" on Lifetime Television, Thursday, Feb. 14 from 7-8 p.m. ET/PT. The "Intimate Portrait" series presents the inspiring biographies of remarkable women from the worlds of politics, art, sports, business, and entertainment who have served as role models to millions of Americans. What distinguishes "Intimate Portrait" from other celebrity profile shows is that, along with interviews from family, friends, and colleagues, it has the featured individuals speak for themselves.

Edelman, who is best known for her work as a tireless advocate for the rights of children and families, has dedicated her entire professional life to this cause. Most recently she has laid out a vision of what America should do for all its children, in the comprehensive Act to Leave No Child Behind. Edelman is spearheading a Movement to Leave No Child Behind to ensure that every child in America can have 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. A graduate of Spelman College and Yale Law School, Edelman 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 Education Fund office in Jackson, Miss. She moved to Washington, D.C. in 1968 to be counsel for the Poor People's March that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. began organizing before his death.

There she founded the Washington Research Project, which later became the Children's Defense Fund.

In 2000, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for her writings, which include several books, among them the New York Times bestseller "The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours," and most recently, "Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors," published in 1999. She has also received the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize.