Dear Lord be good to me. The sea is so wide and my boat is so small

The Children's Defense Fund Leave No Child Behind^® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. Full Mission Statement »

Former Miss. governor William Winter was among those who greeted CDF Founder Marian Wright Edelman in Jackson. See photos of her visit to Jackson, the Delta, and detention centers.
Citizens and activists attended the Better Choices for Mississippi coalition forum in Jackson. CDF-SRO is part of the coalition that is educating citizens about state revenue and spending. The coalition released a new poll. CDF-SRO's director gives her thoughts in the coalition's statement.
Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman ended her tour of Mississippi by speaking at the Strengthening Our Connections Conference in Jackson. Hear Edelman's comments about charter schools and providing quality education for Miss. children.
These young ladies graduated from a CDF-La class that teaches them to make proud choices to avoid teen pregnancy and diseases. CDF-La partnered with the Institute of Women & Ethnic Studies to teach the class.

Protect Children, Not Guns

For more than 20 years, CDF has produced a gun report “Protect Children, Not Guns” which documents the epidemic of gun violence in America. A child or teen dies or is injured from guns every 30 minutes. Gun violence saturates our children’s lives. More children and teens die from guns every three days than died in the Newtown massacre. The number of children under 5 killed by guns in 2010 was more than the number of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty that same year. Between 1979 and 2010, 119,079 children and teens died from guns. This is more deaths in 32 years than U.S. soldiers killed in action in the Vietnam, Korean, Afghanistan and Iraq wars combined. Download our new fact sheet “The Truth About Guns”, distribute the most up-to-date key facts on child and teen gun deaths and injuries and take action by signing a petition to the President and members of Congress demanding they #ProtectChildrenNotGuns.