Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, will speak at the Tabernacle Baptist Church on Sunday, April 27, 2014 at 9 a.m.  The event titled “A Family Affair: It Takes a Village” is a part of the Tabernacle Baptist Church’s 150th Anniversary Celebration.

Marian Wright Edelman was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame for her outstanding contributions to the state’s heritage and progress on February 24. She will be inducted into the Penn Center 1862 Circle on Saturday, April 26.  The South Carolina General Assembly passed a Concurrent Resolution on April 8 honoring Mrs. Edelman on “Her lifetime of serving as an ambassador for disadvantage Americans and to congratulate her on being inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame.”

State Representative Kenneth Hodges, who pastors the Tabernacle Baptist Church and previously pastored Mrs. Edelman’s home church in Bennettsville, says, “We are honored to have Marian Wright Edelman  to address the Tabernacle Family and the Beaufort Community as we focus with renewed interest on the family. Mrs. Edelman will challenge us to reweave the fabric of family and community in order to change the odds for all children guaranteeing them the hope for a future.”

“I have always felt blessed to be born who I was, where I was, when I was, and with the parents I had. Growing up in Bennettsville, I was richly blessed with parents and a black community who nurtured me and other children so that we would realize our God-given potential despite many negative messages of the outside segregated world. We were taught that the world had a lot of problems but that we could change them and that those of us who were given much had a responsibility to give back and that service is the rent we pay for living.  What keeps me going everyday is my belief that we can and will win the fight to make America live up to its ideals in the Declaration of Independence and realize the dream of a level playing field for all,” said Edelman.

She has received over a hundred honorary degrees and many awards including a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award.

Tabernacle Baptist Church is located at 911 Craven Street in Beaufort, S.C.