Billi Jo Lasko
Children’s Defense Fund
A strong, effective, independent voice for all children in America. The history of the Children’s Defense Fund was under the leadership of Marian Wright Edelman. The Children’s Defense Fund grew out of the Civil Rights Movement. Mrs. Edelman was the first black woman admitted into the Mississippi Bar. She also directed the NAACP legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Jackson, Mississippi. Mrs. Edelman worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as counsel for his Poor People Campaign; and dedicated her early career to defending the civil liberties of people struggling to overcome discrimination and poverty. In 1969, Mrs. Edelman began the Washington Research Program, a public interest law firm that monitored federal programs for low-income families and out of that initiative, she founded the Children’s Defense Fund in 1973. …show more content…
Nearly 1.2 million public school students are homeless, 73 percent more than before the recession.
-Children are already suffering hunger over the weekends in households where they do not have access to school breakfast and lunch. More than 1 in 9 children lack access to adequate food, a rate 23 percent higher than before the recession, 1.2 million households with children had no cash income and depended only on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to starve off hunger.
-Working families are struggling. In no state can a person working a fulltime at minimum wage afford the fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment and have enough money for food, utilities, and other necessities. A person would need to work more than two and a half full-time minimum-wage jobs to afford the fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment.
-Black children are the poorest children. In six states-Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Oregon, and Wisconsin-half or more black children are poor and nearly half the states have black poverty rates of 40 percent or
Children’s Defense Fund
A strong, effective, independent voice for all children in America. The history of the Children’s Defense Fund was under the leadership of Marian Wright Edelman. The Children’s Defense Fund grew out of the Civil Rights Movement. Mrs. Edelman was the first black woman admitted into the Mississippi Bar. She also directed the NAACP legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Jackson, Mississippi. Mrs. Edelman worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as counsel for his Poor People Campaign; and dedicated her early career to defending the civil liberties of people struggling to overcome discrimination and poverty. In 1969, Mrs. Edelman began the Washington Research Program, a public interest law firm that monitored federal programs for low-income families and out of that initiative, she founded the Children’s Defense Fund in 1973. …show more content…
Nearly 1.2 million public school students are homeless, 73 percent more than before the recession.
-Children are already suffering hunger over the weekends in households where they do not have access to school breakfast and lunch. More than 1 in 9 children lack access to adequate food, a rate 23 percent higher than before the recession, 1.2 million households with children had no cash income and depended only on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to starve off hunger.
-Working families are struggling. In no state can a person working a fulltime at minimum wage afford the fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment and have enough money for food, utilities, and other necessities. A person would need to work more than two and a half full-time minimum-wage jobs to afford the fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment.
-Black children are the poorest children. In six states-Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Oregon, and Wisconsin-half or more black children are poor and nearly half the states have black poverty rates of 40 percent or