Children's advocate opens Wednesday convention events

Marian Wright Edelman, keynote speaker for the Wednesday morning 3rd General Session at IRA's 51st Annual Convention, said that according to the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children. In the United States, Edelman said, "we flunk that test every day."

Edelman, founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund, which advocates policies that help disadvantaged children, criticized the imbalance of wealth in the United States and the world, with a small minority holding vast riches and many more in extreme poverty. She called for a new measure of social success, one based on the concept of "enough for all," so that the United States' founding principle that all are created equal would "become deed, and not just creed."

The conferees gave Edelman an especially loud round of applause when she said that teachers are the most important people in children's lives outside of their parents. She called on them to remember that fact when they were discouraged, and to keep in mind that any of the children in their classrooms might grow up to make globally significant accomplishments. She also said stories could inspire children to flourish, and that in her book, "I Can Make a Difference" (Amistad, 2005), she had collected a treasury of multicultural stories intended to inspire children to make a difference in the world.

Edelman ended her talk with an anecdote about Sojourner Truth, the antislavery and women's rights advocate whom Edelman called her role model. One white man heckled her once, saying her efforts meant no more to him than a flea bite. "The Lord willing," she replied, "I'll keep you scratching." Edelman told the conferees to be just as persistent—"I hope that you will commit to being a flea," she said, "for justice for children."