Naomi Wadler’s March for Our Lives Speech Continues the Tradition of Outstanding Black Female Activism

By Taylor Crumpton via https://www.teenvogue.com

The 11-year-old spoke out for black women and girls affected by gun violence across the country.

In this op-ed, writer Taylor Crumpton reflects on the impact of 11-year-old Naomi Wadler’s speech about black girls and gun violence at the March for Our Lives on Saturday, March 24.

To be a young black girl in America is to acknowledge from an early age that this country is always going to work against you. You are born into a society that does not allow you to be seen as a child; from the moment you are born, you lose ownership of your body and it becomes subject to fetishization. Your words are misconstructed into acts of aggression and violence, and the saddest realization is the experience of losing your family members and friends to gun violence, only to witness the erasure and demonization of their lives in mass media.

“We know life isn’t equal for everyone,” Naomi Walder, an 11-year-old old black girl, said at the March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C., on March 24. In her speech, she addressed the erasure of black women and girls from the narratives about gun violence in America.

“I am here today 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,” she said. “I represent the African-American women who are victims of gun violence, who are simply statistics instead of vibrant, beautiful girls and full of potential.” She stood in …

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