The Black Community Crusade for Children

Marian Wright Edelman, life-long children’s advocate and President of the Children’s Defense Fund posted the following blog at the Huffington Post promoting the new report, “The Black Community Crusade for Children.” Her blog and the report are in sync with the OTL Campaign’s message that quality education is a civil right for all children, and an essential requirement to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty that threatens black children.



The Black Community Crusade for Children
Marian Wright Edelman
Huffington Post
January 19, 2011


“As our country remembers the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., new research conducted for the Children’s Defense Fund has found the vast majority of America’s black community, seven in 10 adults, view these as ‘tough or very bad times’ for black children and many see poor black youths falling further behind. When 40 percent of black children are born poor, 85 percent of black children cannot read or do math at grade level in fourth grade and later almost half drop out of school, and a black boy born in 2001 has a one in three chance of going to prison sometime in his lifetime, we know we are facing a crisis. So an intergenerational group of black leaders have just committed to a renewed movement to reweave the fabric of family and community for black children and to provide a stronger voice for children in their states and nationally.


“We met in December for three days at the Children’s Defense Fund-Haley Farm near Knoxville, TN, to address what many of us believe is the worst crisis faced by millions of black children since slavery. The meeting had three purposes: (1) to wake up the black community and the nation to the ominous clouds encircling black children and youths whose life chances are less positive than their parents and white peers; (2) to commit to replacing the Cradle to Prison Pipeline® with a pipeline to college, productive work, and successful adulthood for all black children; and (3) to launch the second phase of the Black Community Crusade for Children (BCCC) on the 20th anniversary of the launch of the first Black Community Crusade for Children to Leave No Child Behind®.”  


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