Marian Wright Edelman to Speak At UB On Nov. 20

By Mary Beth Spina

Release Date: October 29, 1997 This content is archived.

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BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund, an advocacy organization that supports projects to address the needs of the nation's children, will speak at the University at Buffalo on Thursday, Nov. 20.

Edelman's presentation, part of the 11th annual Distinguished Speakers Series, will be at 8 p.m. in the Center for the Arts Mainstage theater on the North (Amherst) Campus.

An advocate for disadvantaged Americans for nearly three decades, Edelman began her career in the mid-1960s as director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Jackson, Miss.

A graduate of Spellman College and Yale Law School, she worked as counsel for the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Poor People's March in 1968.

She founded the Children's Defense Fund in 1973.

Edelman has received numerous honorary degrees and awards, and authored books including "The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours."

Her lecture is sponsored by the James Fenton Lecture Foundation.

Contributing sponsors are the Junior League of Buffalo; the Buffalo Federation of Neighborhood Centers; Success by Six; Planned Parenthood of Buffalo & Erie County; the YWCA; chapters of The Links, Inc. in Buffalo, Erie County, Rochester, Niagara Falls and Jamestown, and UB's Division of Public Service and Urban Affairs.

The Distinguished Speakers Series is presented by the University at Buffalo and the Don Davis Auto World Lectureship Fund. Affiliate series sponsor is the University Bookstore.

Series contributing sponsors are Center for the Arts, UB Alumni Association, Makin' Copies and University Union Activities Board and the Buffalo/Niagara Marriott Hotel.

Other nationally known speakers scheduled for the season's series are author, columnist and CBS-TV commentator Andy Rooney on Thursday, Jan. 29, and author and poet Maya Angelou on Thursday, April 23.

Tickets to the series lectures are available in person in advance or at the door of the Center for the Arts box office. Call 716-645-ARTS for more information.