how naomi wadler is going to change the world

This article originally appeared in i-D’s The Earthwise Issue, no. 353, Fall 2018.

Smart, eloquent, and wise beyond her years, Naomi Wadler’s appearance at Washington’s March For Our Lives gun control rally in March was picked up by news channels across the globe. Her impassioned speech urging the nation not to forget “the African-American girls who’s stories don’t make the front page of every national newspaper” was made more poignant by the gravitas of seeing an 11-year-old girl stand up in front of 200,000 marchers to quietly, and forcefully, articulate her rage at the racist violence at the heart of American society.

The speech went viral. Naomi Wadler became a hashtag. She trended on Twitter. Media requests flew in from CNN. She received shout outs from celebrities including Lupita Nyong’o, Tessa Thompson and Janelle Monae. She was even hailed future president material. But most importantly of all, she opened up the gun violence conversation to include race.

Six months later, and the dust doesn’t look any closer to settling, with Naomi going on to speak at the Teen Vogue Summit and appear on the Ellen DeGeneres show.

So how do you become an 11-year-old activist? Born in Ethiopia and adopted as a baby, Naomi lives in Alexandria, Washington, and organised a protest walk out at her school after the daughter of a friend of her mother’s was killed in the Parkland shooting. While the majority of student protests lasted 17 minutes – to honour Parkland’s 17 victims – Naomi added an additional minute to honour Courtlin Arrington, an African-American teenager shot dead at high school in Alabama, who had distressingly gone under the radar.

Naomi made the news, and she was invited to speak at March For Our Lives as a result. “I represent the African-American women who are victims of gun violence, who are simply statistics instead of vibrant, beautiful girls that fill a potential,” she stated. “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.”

Naomi was the second-youngest speaker at the march – after nine-year-old Yolanda Renee King, Martin Luther King’s granddaughter. She doesn’t have any social media accounts, so she is unaware of the global impact she’s made, something her mum would like to maintain.

For this issue of i-D, Naomi wanted to write a poem celebrating Black Girl Magic. Read her words and digest their message below. A star is born.