LA Philanthropy Watch

Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, presented the keynote address at the 18^th annual summit of the Empowerment Congress.

Before she began her prepared remarks, Mrs. Edelman asked audience members to contact Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, and George Miller – three California Members of Congress in the Democratic leadership – to urge them to find a way to pass health care reform; as she put it, “Don’t let them kill health care reform.”

She returned to this refrain again near the end of her remarks, asking the audience to tell Henry Waxman to pass health care reform.  “Tell him, ‘Do it.  Just do it.’”

Marian Wright Edelman’s talk began with the description of an experience that inspired her to found the Children’s Defense Fund. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, she was out on the street urging youngsters not to loot – and destroy their futures.  A youngster suggested to her that he had no future to lose.  She launched CDF to ensure that every young person in the country has the opportunity to build a viable future.

Quoting the dictum that a society is judged by how it treats its weakest, most vulnerable members, she observed, “Our country flunks [this] test every hour of every day.”

Education is central to every child’s future, yet many children are unprepared for school, attend schools where learning is not expected, or drop out before completing their educations.  “What’s a child going to do if [s/he] can’t read or write or compute?”

Mrs. Edelman asked members of the audience to imagine God looking down on a wealthy family in which 4 of 5 children were well cared for: with enough to eat, with fine health care, and benefiting from enriching activities.  These four children will be prepared for school and will compete on a level playing field.

God observed, in contrast, that the fifth child went hungry, suffered chronic infections and respiratory diseases without adequate care, and experienced general neglect.  Children born into such circumstances will be unprepared to learn.  Yet preparing children for education “is a civil rights movement.”  Moreover, we must hold children accountable – “believe in them, have high expectations of them.”

“We need to tell them they can make it.  They can make it.”

“This is the American family today,” she suggested.  One in every five children in the nation – and in Los Angeles – is born into poverty.  Their life prospects are harsher, their futures are darker – from the beginning – than the promise and possibilities presented to more fortunate children.

“We can do better and we’ve got to do better,” she said, noting that most of these children with unpromising futures were born into working families.

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men,” said Mrs. Edelman, quoting Frederick Douglass.

During her talk, Mrs. Edelman referenced a 2007 report, “America’s Cradle to Prison Pipeline,” which is available on the Children’s Defense Fund website. The report documents the results of a culture of neglect and concludes – as Marian Wright Edelman did in her remarks – with the call for a movement on behalf of children.

The CDF Freedom Schools program provides out-of-school enrichment activities for children from age 5 through 18.  In addition to an office in Los Angeles, CDF (which is headquartered in Washington, DC) has several Freedom Schools in place in the region and more on the way.

My next post on the annual summit will focus on the workshop I attended.

Earlier posts included, “Mark Ridley-Thomas Hosts 18th Annual Empowerment Congress” and “Mark Ridley-Thomas Addresses Activists at Annual Summit.”