DATE: 4-5:30 p.m. Jan. 27, 2009.

EVENT: Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, will give the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy’s 2009 Citigroup Foundation Lecture at the University of Michigan.

She will speak from her new book, “The Sea Is So Wide and My Boat Is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation,” which she wrote as a call to action for Americans to address the urgent needs of our country’s youth.

“Every person must step forward and take action to improve the lives of children and our nation’s future,” she said.

Edelman is the author of the No. 1 New York Times bestseller, “The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours,” and eight other books. She is the winner of many awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship, the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Award, a Heinz Award, and a Niebuhr Award.

In 2000, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for her writings. Edelman is a graduate of Spelman College and Yale Law School.

This event is part of U-M’s 2009 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Symposium.

LOCATION: Michigan Union Ballroom, 530 S. State Street. Central Campus map: http://www.umich.edu/news/Maps/ccamp.html

SPONSORS: The Ford School Citigroup Foundation, the National Poverty Center and the Students of Color in Public Policy.

MORE INFORMATION: Laura Lee, (734) 764-8593.