Marian Wright Edelman, who received the union's Social Justice Award, told delegates the UAW helped raise awareness of hunger in America. Photo by Rebecca Cook.

Nearly 40 years ago, Marian Wright Edelman told a young man her goal was to end hunger and poverty so he could have a better future.  
“What future?” the boy asked.

As founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, a nonprofit child advocacy and research group, Edelman has spent the last four decades – and plans to spend the rest of her life – to prove that boy wrong.

Edelman, who received the UAW Social Justice Award on Tuesday at the UAW’s 35th Constitutional Convention in Detroit, spoke about our children’s future adding “the most dangerous place is that intersection of poverty and race.”

“It’s unthinkable in the richest nation on earth that we let this happen. It’s becoming the new apartheid,” said Edelman, who started the Washington-based CDF in 1973.

CDF traces its heritage to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his fight for social and economic justice for all people. She hailed former UAW President Walter P. Reuther, who in the 1960s chaired the Citizen’s Crusade Against Poverty Records, a coalition of organizations concerned with poverty.

“Walter Reuther helped tens of thousands who were in poverty, and the UAW helped put hunger on the map,” said Edelman who believes education is the way to end poverty among children.

Cynthia Anderson, a delegate from UAW Local 7127, says early childhood education is critical. Photo By John Davis, UAW Local 2195.

“More than 80 percent of our children cannot read – black and Latino children are sentenced to social and economic death. Let me be blunt: We must get the best people in our classrooms – education is the key to jobs,” she said. “We must get bad teachers out of classrooms. Ignorance is a whole lot more costly than education,” she added.

“One of the biggest problems is children can’t read. Some of their parents can’t read and because of a lack of education, these children have nothing else to do but remain on the streets and get into trouble,” said Cynthia Anderson of UAW Local 7127, who is in the process of starting a child-care service out of her home and has worked with children in group homes and foster care.

“It’s important to start working with children at preschool age – they need love and education. We must stop our children having children and start training them now,” said Anderson, who has a master’s in social work.

Edelman ended her remarks with a prayer for children:

“Pray and build a movement to protect children who never get dessert and whose monsters are real. ... Stand up for those children all over America whose nightmares come in the daytime, who go to bed hungry ... and for those children who don’t get a second chance.”

Jennifer John