Naomi Wadler took the stage at a March For Our Lives events Saturday bringing attention to female African American victims of gun violence.
“I am here today to acknowledge and represent the African-American girls whose stories don’t make the front page of every national newspaper. These stories don’t lead on the evening news,” Wadler said at the Washington D.C. March for Our Lives rally.
“I represent the African-American women who are victims of gun violence, who are simply statistics, instead of vibrant, beautiful girls, full of potential.”
Wadler, 11, also helped organize a walkout at her school, George Mason Elementary School in Alexandria, Va. where she honored the 17 victims who died in the Parkland, Fla. school shooting and Courtlin Arrington, an African American teenager who was shot and killed in her Alabama high school after the Parkland shooting, by walking out for 18 minutes.
“For far too long, these names, these black girls and women, have been just numbers. I’m here to say ‘Never again,’ for those girls too. I’m here to say that everyone should value those girls too,” Wadler said in her speech.
“People have said that I am too young to have these thoughts on my own. People have said that I am a tool of some nameless adult. It’s not true.”
- What We Know So Far About the Deadly Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria
- Beyoncé's Album of the Year Snub Fits Into the Grammys' Long History of Overlooking Black Women
- How the U.S. Shot Down the Alleged Chinese Spy Balloon
- Effective Altruism Has a Toxic Culture of Sexual Harassment and Abuse, Women Say
- Inside Bolsonaro's Surreal New Life as a Florida Man—and MAGA Darling
- 'Return to Office' Plans Spell Trouble for Working Moms
- 8 Ways to Read More Books—and Why You Should
- Why Aren't Movies Sexy Anymore?
- How Logan Paul's Crypto Empire Fell Apart
