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Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors
I am grateful beyond words for the example of the lanterns shared in this memoir whose lives I hope will illuminate my children's, your children's, and the paths of countless others coming behind.--Marian Wright Edelman, from the PrefaceMarian Wright Edelman, "the most influential children's advocate in the country" (The Washington Post), shares stories from her life at the center of this century's most dramatic civil rights struggles. She pays tribute to the extraordinary personal mentors who helped light her Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, Fannie Lou Hamer, William Sloane Coffin, Ella Baker, Mae Bertha Carter, and many others.She celebrates the lives of the great Black women of Bennettsville, South Carolina-Miz Tee, Miz Lucy, Miz Kate-who along with her parents formed a formidable and loving network of community support for the young Marian Wright as a Black girl growing up in the segregated South. We follow the author to Spelman College in the late 1950s, when the school was a hotbed of civil rights activism, and where, through excerpts from her honest and passionate college journal, we witness a national leader in the making and meet the people who inspired and empowered her, including Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, Howard Zinn, and Charles E. Merrill, Jr.Lanterns takes us to Mississippi in the 1960s, where Edelman was the first and only Black woman lawyer. Her account of those years is a riveting first-hand addition to the literature of civil "The only person I recognized in the menacing crowd as I walked towards the front courthouse steps was [a] veteran New York Times reporter. He neither acknowledged me nor met my eyes. I knew then what it was like to be a poor Black person in alone." And we follow Edelman as she leads Bobby Kennedy on his fateful trip to see Mississippi poverty and hunger for himself, a powerful personal experience for the young RFK that helped awaken a nation's conscience to child hunger and poverty. Lanterns is illustrated with thirty of the author's personal photographs and includes "A Parent's Pledge" and "Twenty-five More Lessons for Life," an inspiration to all of us-parents, grandparents, teachers, religious and civic leaders-to guide, protect, and love our children every day so that they will become, in Marian Wright Edelman's moving vision, the healing agents for national transformation.
246 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1999
21 people are currently reading
237 people want to read
About the author
Marian Wright Edelman
55 books61 followersMarian Wright Edelman is an American activist for children's rights. She has been an advocate for disadvantaged Americans for her entire professional life. She is founder and president emerita of the Children's Defense Fund. She influenced leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Hillary Clinton.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 3, 2023
Worthwhile read. Some opinions are definitely outdated, but it was published in 1999.
December 28, 2019
Insightful, powerful, and charming memoir told through the lens of mentor figures for Edelman. She cites mentors near (parents) and far (historical figures), specific (four community leaders) and broad (children). Edelman has done much for this country, children, and the civil rights movement. This one is certainly a good read.
January 9, 2022
This book has been a part of my personal library since April 2000. Reading it now I find it as relevant today as it was 20 years ago and more needed than ever. It marks America’s growth over the past 20 years and leaves us the message that we need to turn our attention back to what is most important, our children.
April 9, 2020
When she was writing about specific people who impacted her early life her writing was very powerful & inspiring, but it was decidedly less so in the latter half of the book when she wrote more about causes
April 3, 2020
I love her writing style. The mentors she discusses in the book taught her how to be a good person, not just a wonderful scholar and activist.
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December 1, 2011Longtime activist Edelman generously structures her material around iconic beacons like Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, Sojourner Truth, and the female elders of Bennettsville, S.C., where Edelman grew up in the 1940s. Intentionally didactic, and strictly chronological, LANTERNS improvises on the traditional biographical sketch, religious meditation, and social exposé; and it also includes journal excerpts.
Edelman, now president of the Children’s Defense Fund, initially gained recognition in the early 1960s, when she became the first female attorney admitted to the Mississippi bar; she was only the fourth black lawyer practicing in the entire state during the Freedom Summer of 1964. Working for the civil rights movement was risky for everyone involved, but Edelman’s chronicle of Klan horrors employs a theme-and-variations approach that pays tribute to the resiliency of the individual, in particular the anonymous African-American women she met in the Delta. Mae Bertha Carter, for example, isn’t generalized into a symbol but “lit” by her own special flame, which Edelman describes.
Edelman’s story reminds us that children usually suffer most in troubled times: Carter’s daughters and sons, living in a house that was shot into on a regular basis, became so terrified of night snipers that they refused to sleep anywhere but the floor for many years. But an even more poignant—and telling—moment in LANTERNS occurs when Edelman tries to describe the piled children’s shoes she sees on a later visit to Auschwitz. The shoes represent an evil largely untouched by the sort of activism that marked the civil rights movement; Edelman can sustain the description for only two sentences before cutting to a cheerier scene, in which an angry white mob of Mississippians is defused by the gospel song “This Little Light of Mine.” Inspiring this episode might be, but it also underscores both the metaphorical and practical limitations of gospel music—and, by extension, the limits of Edelman’s own memoir. At times it refuses altogether the blues’ darker notes, as Albert Murray would say, leading paradoxically to an inability to contemplate—much less pity—those caught most helplessly in history’s flames.
(originally published in the NASHVILLE SCENE)
Edelman, now president of the Children’s Defense Fund, initially gained recognition in the early 1960s, when she became the first female attorney admitted to the Mississippi bar; she was only the fourth black lawyer practicing in the entire state during the Freedom Summer of 1964. Working for the civil rights movement was risky for everyone involved, but Edelman’s chronicle of Klan horrors employs a theme-and-variations approach that pays tribute to the resiliency of the individual, in particular the anonymous African-American women she met in the Delta. Mae Bertha Carter, for example, isn’t generalized into a symbol but “lit” by her own special flame, which Edelman describes.
Edelman’s story reminds us that children usually suffer most in troubled times: Carter’s daughters and sons, living in a house that was shot into on a regular basis, became so terrified of night snipers that they refused to sleep anywhere but the floor for many years. But an even more poignant—and telling—moment in LANTERNS occurs when Edelman tries to describe the piled children’s shoes she sees on a later visit to Auschwitz. The shoes represent an evil largely untouched by the sort of activism that marked the civil rights movement; Edelman can sustain the description for only two sentences before cutting to a cheerier scene, in which an angry white mob of Mississippians is defused by the gospel song “This Little Light of Mine.” Inspiring this episode might be, but it also underscores both the metaphorical and practical limitations of gospel music—and, by extension, the limits of Edelman’s own memoir. At times it refuses altogether the blues’ darker notes, as Albert Murray would say, leading paradoxically to an inability to contemplate—much less pity—those caught most helplessly in history’s flames.
(originally published in the NASHVILLE SCENE)
July 25, 2013
Enlightening!
For centuries sailors have relied on the constellations of heavenly lanterns to guide their way. In crisp, vivid prose, Marian Wright Edelman tells us about the heroes who provided beacons of hope and inspiration, helping her find her way through the many moral dillemas of life and stay on course.
What is interesting is the sheer variety of backgrounds Dr. Edelman's heroes have. Nevertheless, they all share the author's passion for human rights and social justice. As a bonus, Dr. Edelman gives a brief history of the civil rights era, a nice complement to two other fine books on that fascinating topic, Taylor Branch's "Parting the Waters" and David Halberstam's "The Children."
This book is much more a memoir. It is a call of action and an inspiration for all of us to act for the common good, to serve the community. It is up to the current generations to act as a positive role model for the next, much as Dr. Edelman's mentors did for her.
Mentors, lanterns, are important at all times, during the economic boom of the late 1990s, when this book was written, as well as in the troubled initial years of the 21st century. Ms. Edelman currently writes an excellent column in the Huffington Post. There are already too many ships out there lacking a sailor to read the stars. And some ships don't even have a rudder.
For centuries sailors have relied on the constellations of heavenly lanterns to guide their way. In crisp, vivid prose, Marian Wright Edelman tells us about the heroes who provided beacons of hope and inspiration, helping her find her way through the many moral dillemas of life and stay on course.
What is interesting is the sheer variety of backgrounds Dr. Edelman's heroes have. Nevertheless, they all share the author's passion for human rights and social justice. As a bonus, Dr. Edelman gives a brief history of the civil rights era, a nice complement to two other fine books on that fascinating topic, Taylor Branch's "Parting the Waters" and David Halberstam's "The Children."
This book is much more a memoir. It is a call of action and an inspiration for all of us to act for the common good, to serve the community. It is up to the current generations to act as a positive role model for the next, much as Dr. Edelman's mentors did for her.
Mentors, lanterns, are important at all times, during the economic boom of the late 1990s, when this book was written, as well as in the troubled initial years of the 21st century. Ms. Edelman currently writes an excellent column in the Huffington Post. There are already too many ships out there lacking a sailor to read the stars. And some ships don't even have a rudder.
October 22, 2013
This book came along at the right time! I loved how Mrs. Wright-Edelman chronicled key American historical events through her mentors. She is inspirational, her mentors are inspirational, I was completely inspired!
March 8, 2009
For discussion in a Leadership Bookgroup...may also try to read: Measure of Success, which was given to me by a mentor but I never actually finished.
September 24, 2010
How many of us have so many other people that thankfully helped us become who we are and who we will become.
March 20, 2012
And we all must have mentors . . .
March 26, 2008
A boring book given to me by my graduate school teacher.
April 19, 2008
She is one of my role models as an educator. A good book to give to someone who has mentored you.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews