A graduate of Spelman College and Yale Law School, Marian Wright Edelman was the first Black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, and directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Jackson, Mississippi. In l968, she moved to Washington, D.C., as counsel for the Poor People's Campaign that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., began organizing before his death. She founded the Washington Research Project, a public-interest law firm and the parent body of CDF.

Mrs. Edelman has received many honorary degrees and awards. Her writings include seven books: Families in Peril: An Agenda for Social Change; The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours; Guide My Feet: Meditations and Prayers on Loving and Working for Children; Stand for Children; Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors; Hold My Hand: Prayers for Building a Movement to Leave No Child Behind; and I'm Your Child, God: Prayers for Our Children.

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The Great Writers Lecture Series is made possible through generous contributions from the Charles K. Colver Lectureship and Publication Fund, the Zucker Family Endowment, the Goldway/Shearer family, the Dean of the College, the Department of Physics, the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, the Literary Arts Program, the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research, the Department of Modern Culture and Media, the Department of Comparative Literature, the Africana Studies Department, and the Department of Hispanic Studies.