Founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund--and bestselling author--Edelman looks back on what has been done, and what still needs to be done, to make the nation and world safe and fair for all children.

Related Categories:
Books > Social Science > Essays
Books > Literary Collections > Letters

Sea of love

Like Angelou, Marian Wright Edelman believes that women, as the bearers of life (and half the voting population), must become a stronger force for justice and decency. Edelman is the founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund and author of the bestseller The Measure of Our Success. She's an outspoken advocate for civil and human rights and her latest book, The Sea Is So Wide and My Boat Is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation, urges personal activism, "standing up and reclaiming our children, families, communities, our moral values and our nation." Despite the "unjust odds handed them by the lottery of birth," millions of children, Edelman notes, "are living heroic lives" and deserve to be affirmed, empowered and celebrated. Written as open letters to our past and present leaders, our youth and all of us as citizens, Edelman asks, "What kind of people do we Americans seek to be in the twenty-first century? What kind of people do we want our children to be? What kind of choices and sacrifices are we prepared to make to realize a more just, compassionate and less violent society and world—one safe and fit for every child?" Edelman's book offers advice, anecdotes, statistics, resources and prayers to guide us—like a lighthouse if you will—to more stable waters in these turbulent seas.