On March 14, 2018, Naomi Wadler and Carter Anderson led 200 students from George Mason Elementary School in Alexandria, Virginia, in a walkout to honor the victims of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, and the shooting of Courtlin Arrington, a Black girl in Alabama, shot following the Parkland shooting. Arrington was the victim of a white classmate waving a gun in school when it discharged accidentally. Carter and Naomi have been friends and neighbors since kindergarten. Their walkout lasted 18 minutes—17 minutes for each victim of the Parkland shooting and one additional minute for Courtlin Arrington.
Naomi Wadler, an adopted Jewish Ethiopian, stated she was a victim of racism both for her being Black and Jewish.
On March 24, 2018, Naomi gave a speech at the March for Our Lives rally in Washington, DC when she was only 11. The speech focused on the disproportionate number of Black female victims of gun violence, a topic she felt was often overlooked.
“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. I represent the African American women who are victims of gun violence, who are simply statistics instead of vibrant, beautiful girls full of potential.
“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.
“My friends and I might still be 11 and we might still be in elementary school, but we know. We know life isn’t equal for everyone and we know what is right and wrong. We also know that we stand in the shadow of the Capital and we know that we have seven short years until we too have the right to vote.
“So, I am here today to honor the words of Toni Morrison. ‘If there’s a book that you want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.’”
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