Date of Birth: June 10, 1953

Place of Birth: Seneca, South Carolina

Race: Caucasian

Religious Affiliation: Methodist

Education
B.S., North Carolina State University, 1974
J.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1977

Family
Spouse: Mary Elizabeth Anania, married 1977
Children: Lucius Wade, born 1979, died in a car accident 1996; Catharine, born 1982; Emma, born 1998; Jack, born 2000

Experience

Current position:
Full-time Presidential candidate

Past Public Service Positions: 
US Senator from North Carolina: 1999-2005

Past Private Sector Positions:
Attorney
 

Why I Got Into Politics 

At a celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday at Riverside Church in New York in 2007, John Edwards spoke about the importance of participating in civic life to create change.

“As he [Dr. Martin Luther King] put it then ‘there comes a time’ not just for Dr. King but for all of us, ‘when silence is betrayal.’ Not just betrayal of your own personal convictions, not just betrayal of your country, but a betrayal of our, all of our, joint responsibility to each other, our brothers and sisters not just in America but all across the globe…

“He spoke to the American people calling on us to break our silence, calling on us to accept our own responsibility and to help lead what he spoke of us as a revolution of values. A revolution whose staring place is with each of us, but the force of that revolution is with the belief that we can not can stand by and hope that someone else will right the wrongs of the world…it is the heart and soul of realizing ‘the dream’…There does come a time when we have to, each one of us has to, refuse to wait for others to act, a moment when we realize as one of Dr. Kings’ great teachers Gandhi said ‘we have to be the change we wish to see in the world’…Silence is betrayal speak out.”