25 young people making noise for social progress

WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 24: Eleven-year-old Naomi Wadler addresses the March for Our Lives rally on March 24, 2018 in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, including students, teachers and parents gathered in Washington for the anti-gun violence rally organized by survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on February 14 that left 17 dead. More than 800 related events are taking place around the world to call for legislative action to address school safety and gun violence. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Naomi Wadler

11-year-old Naomi Wadler went viral when she stood up for black girls and women at the March for Our Lives.

Wadler learned about the Parkland shooting and found out that her mom’s friend’s daughter Jaime Guttenberg died in the shooting. She wanted to act, so she and her friend Carter Anderson organized a walkout at their elementary school like the ones they’d heard about at middle and high schools. They held a walkout for 17 minutes to honor the 17 victims at Parkland, but then they added an extra minute for Courtlin Arrington, a 17-year-old black girl who was shot and killed in her high school in Alabama in March but whose death went underreported.

Black women often go unreported and unrecognized despite facing a lot of the violence. But Wadler then spoke at the March for Our Lives and demanded that black girls be seen. She also spoke at a gun violence forum that Congressman Don Beyer hosted.

“I am here to acknowledge and represent the African American girls whose stories don’t make the front page of every national newspaper, whose stories don’t lead on the evening news,” Wadler said at the protest. “I represent the African American women who are victims of gun violence, who are simply statistics instead of vibrant, beautiful girls full of potential.”

And Wadler, who was honored as one of Do Something’s Inspirational 25, is not slowing down.

“I’ve sat in here and said, ‘I can’t do this. I don’t know what I’m talking about. They’re never gonna listen to me. I’m 11 years old,’ and then I look at the impact I’ve made … Why not?” Wadler told A Plus. “I think it’s so fulfilling, and it’s so rewarding to be able to say. ‘This black girl looks up to me.’ It’s partly my job to show her she can be whatever she wants to be.”