11-year-old Naomi Wadler honors black female victims of gun violence during March for Our Lives
WASHINGTON -- During March for Our Lives, one 11-year-old said she wanted to honor the gun violence victims who didn't make national headlines in the same way that others did.
The young girl was Naomi Wadler, and she said she was speaking to "acknowledge and represent the African-American girls whose stories don't make the front page of every newspaper."
Wadler evoked the killing of Courtlin Arrington, who was fatally shot in an Alabama classroom a month before her 18th birthday. She mentioned Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old who was fatally shot in Chicago five years ago, and Taiyania Thompson, a teenager who was fatally shot in the head in Washington earlier this year.
"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," Wadler, who organized a walkout at her Virginia elementary school earlier this month, said.
Statistics show that black women are disproportionately impacted by gun violence. In 2014, 57 percent of black female homicide victims were shot and killed with guns, according to the Violence Policy Center. That same study found that the homicide rate for black females was more than twice the rate for white women.
