Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson of St. Louis Tapped to Lead Children's Defense Fund, NAACP Crisis Magazine (Copy)

There’s been a passing of the torch for the next era of leadership at the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF).

The Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson, an activist, minister and philanthropist in St. Louis, Mo., has been named CDF’s new president and CEO, taking the reins from Marian Wright Edelman, who founded the national child advocacy organization nearly 50 years ago. The organization grew out of the Civil Rights Movement, namely Edelman’s work during the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project and as counsel for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1968 Poor People’s Campaign.