Legendary civil rights activist and Hillary Clinton mentor Marian Wright Edelman is urging Floridians to go to the polls, although her group’s non-profit status prevents her from endorsing candidates.
Edelman, the first Black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, served as legal counsel for Dr. Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign before founding the Children’s Defense Fund in 1973.
A young Hillary Clinton worked for CDF, but Edelman had a public falling out with the Clinton Administration over welfare reform. Today, Edelman says the stakes for poor children are too high to risk voting for third-party candidates who have little chance of getting elected.
“Don’t’ let anybody steal our children’s future, don’t let anybody steal the values of our country. Make sure that we move forward.”
The Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient says Florida ranks 38th among the states in terms of child poverty. She says she intends to lobby the next presidential administration for more housing and health programs for the poor.
