Sharmishta Chakrabarti (June 16, 1969- Present)

Sharmishta "Shami" Chakrabarti is, since September 2003, the director of Liberty, the British civil liberties advocacy organisation and, since July 2008, the Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University. In September 2014, she took up the role as Chancellor of the University of Essex.

Shami first joined Liberty as In-House Counsel on September 10, 2001. She became heavily involved in its engagement with the 'War on Terror' and with the defense and promotion of human rights values in Parliament, the Courts and wider society.

A Barrister by background, she was called to the Bar in 1994 and worked as a lawyer in the Home Office from 1996 until 2001 for Governments of both persuasions.

Since becoming Liberty’s Director she has written, spoken and broadcast widely on the importance of the post-WW2 human rights framework as an essential component of democratic society.

She was born in London and studied Law at the London School of Economics. Shami, who divorced in 2014, lives in London with her son. She is Chancellor of Essex University and a Master of the Bench of Middle Temple.

In 2011, Shami was invited to be one of six independent assessors advising Lord Justice Leveson in his Public Inquiry into the Culture, Practice and Ethics of the UK Press. She was also chosen as one of eight Olympic Flag carriers at the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony. In February 2014, she was appointed as Honorary Professor of Law at the University of Manchester.

Shami's first book, On Liberty, was published by Allen Lane in October of 2014.

Marian Wright Edelman (born June 6, 1939- Present)

Marian Wright was born June 6, 1939 in Bennettsville, South Carolina. In 1953, her father died when she was 14, urging in his last words, "Don't let anything get in the way of your education."

She attended Marlboro Training High School in Bennettsville, and went on to Spelman College and traveled the world on a Merrill scholarship and studied in the Soviet Union as a Lisle fellow. She also became involved in the Civil Rights Movement, and after being arrested for her activism, she decided to study law and enrolled at Yale Law School where she earned a Juris Doctor in 1963.

Activism

Edelman was the first African American woman admitted to The Mississippi Bar. She began practicing law with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.'s Mississippi office, working on racial justice issues connected with the civil rights movement and representing activists during the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964. She also helped establish a Head Start program .

Edelman moved in 1968 to Washington, D.C. where she continued her work and contributed to the organizing of the Poor People's Campaign of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She founded the Washington Research Project, a public interest law firm and also became interested in issues related to childhood development and children.

In 1973, she founded the Children's Defense Fund as a voice for poor children, children of color,and children with disabilities. The organization has served as an advocacy and research center for children's issues, documenting the problems and possible solutions to children in need.

As founder, leader and principal spokesperson for the CDF, Mrs. Edelman worked to persuade Congress to overhaul foster care, support adoption, improve child care and protect children who are disabled, homeless, abused or neglected. A philosophy of service absorbed during her childhood under-girds all her efforts. As she expresses it, “If you don’t like the way the world is, you have an obligation to change it. Just do it one step at a time.”

She continues to advocate youth pregnancy prevention, child-care funding, prenatal care, greater parental responsibility in teaching values and curtailing what she sees as children’s exposure to the barrage of violent images transmitted by mass media. Edelman serves on the board of the New York City based Robin Hood Foundation, a charitable organization dedicated to the elimination of poverty.

Personal life

During a tour by Robert Kennedy and Joseph Clark of Mississippi's poverty-ridden Delta slums in 1967, she met Peter Edelman, an assistant to Kennedy. They married on July 14, 1968. Edelman and her husband, a Georgetown law professor, have three children: Joshua, Jonah, and Ezra. Joshua is an educational administrator; Jonah, a Ph.D. from Oxford University, works in education advocacy; Ezra is a television producer.

Honors and awards

1985 MacArthur Fellowship

1985 Barnard Medal of Distinction

1986 Doctor of Laws, honoris causa Bates College

1988 Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism

1991 Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.

1992 Boy Scouts of America, Silver Buffalo Award

1995 Community of Christ International Peace Award

1996 The 2nd Annual Heinz Award in the Human Condition

2000 Presidential Medal of Freedom

2011 Rathbun Visiting Fellow at Stanford University