MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN,
CHILDREN'S ADVOCATE &
MARTIN LUTHER KING'S
LEGAL ADVISOR TO
SPEAK AT OCU

Marian Wright Edelman.

Photo courtesy of OCU

Marian Wright Edelman, a children’s advocate and legal advisor to Martin Luther King Jr., will give a presentation at 7:30 p.m. March 6 as part of Oklahoma City University’s Distinguished Speakers series. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. The event is free to the public and will be held in the Henry J. Freede Wellness and Activity Center at N.W. 27^th Street and Florida Avenue.

Edelman has focused her career on helping disadvantaged Americans. She is the founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, which for 40 years has provided an influential voice on matters affecting children and families.

In the 1960s, as a young lawyer and the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, she directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund before becoming counsel to civil rights leader King’s Poor People’s Campaign. She founded the Washington Research Project and was director of Harvard’s Center for Law and Education.

The recipient of more than 100 honorary degrees, Edelman has earned many awards including the MacArthur Fellowship, the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism and the United States’ highest civilian prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She is the first woman elected by alumni as a member of the Yale University Corporation.

For more information about the Distinguished Speakers series call (405) 208-4956 or visit www.okcu.edu/speakers.