Marian Wright Edelman is an American activist for the rights of children. She is president and founder of the Children's Defense Fund.

Edelman's thinking was influenced by her father, Arthur Wright, a Baptist preacher who taught that Christianity required service in this world, and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph. Her father died when Marian was only fourteen, urging in his last words to her, "Don't let anything get in the way of your education."