CHILDREN'S DEFENSE FUND PRESIDENT 
TO SPEAK AT U.VA. VALEDICTION

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Feb. 28 -- Marian Wright Edelman,
president of the Children's Defense Fund, will speak at Class
Valediction Exercises Saturday, May 20, at the University of
Virginia.
	A lifelong advocate for disadvantaged Americans, Edelman
founded the prominent 22-year-old organization that lobbies for
programs and services that improve children's lives.  In 1968 she
founded the Washington Research Project, a public interest law firm
and parent body of the Children's Defense Fund, which receives
revenue exclusively through private grants.
	Edelman will speak at the ceremony organized by officers of
the graduating class to honor students, faculty and other members of
the University community for their contributions to the school.
Nationally syndicated Washington Post columnist William J. Raspberry
will address the 1995 class the next day during Final Exercises.
	A graduate of Spelman College and Yale law school, Edelman
was the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi bar, and
emerged as a leading civil rights lawyer in the early 1960s.
	Among the numerous honors bestowed on her are the Thomas
Jefferson Memorial Foundation Award in Law in 1992, the Gandhi Peace
Award in 1990 and the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize in 1988.
###
February 27, 1995
	FOR MORE INFORMATION on how speakers are chosen for the
class ceremony, contact Miriam La Pointe, student chair of the
graduation committee, at (804) 243-1605 or Jennifer Young,
president, class trustees, at (804) 977-9547.