[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm youth activist Naomi Wadler.
Last year I gave a speech at the March
For Our Lives rally in Washington, D.C.
I am here today to acknowledge and represent
the African-American girls whose stories don't
make the front page of every national newspaper.
[CHEERING]
Since then, I've been on a mission to change the world one
conversation at a time.
Last year I was honored to be one of the keynote speakers
at the Teen Vogue Summit.
It was packed with so many amazing women,
and I wanted to talk with many of them as I could.
Why is it important to voice your opinion?
Not everyone is speaking up, and your voice
can do so much in the world.
The more people standing up, the more change we can make.
The youth are the future.
And so we're going to make sure that they
understand that, they see that, and that it
stays in their minds.
Because if they try to silence you with their words,
you silence them with you're amazing actions.
What do you hope the landscape for women
will look like in six years when I'm able to vote?
Next year I'll be 18, and then the year after that it's 2020
and I'll be able to vote.
So hopefully I can open up a pathway
so when you are able to vote, we don't
have to still have the same struggles that we have today.
I'm hoping that you gonna be the president, girl.
That's what I'm hoping.
I hope that the idea of having more women in politics,
in general, becomes just the norm.
Having more representation of all types of women.
And there are so many occupations we could fill.
And I feel like some people don't
feel like we can fill those occupations,
but we totally can.
We're fighting the good fight.
Deserves a snap.
Cheerios and I want to encourage kids to do good
for others around them.
So I wanted to shout out Andrew who is doing exactly that.
Andrew has three autistic siblings
and helped to push a bill through legislature
that trains police on how to interact
with people with autism.
Andrew is proof that you don't need to be 18
to make a political change.
Over the past few weeks I've been lucky enough
to be able to speak with some of the most inspiring people.
Here the most powerful moments.
On those days where I feel rubbish about myself,
I genuinely do have to write down
a list of everything I am that is
impressive and worthy of being in this world.
I make sure that I continue to return
to my list of what makes me an important person to the people
that I love.
Every time that you feel content with yourself,
and you feel powerful, and you feel
like you are good just as you are,
that is an act of feminist resistance.
So I implore you to do that.
I gave a speech for March For Our Lives,
but I wanted to talk about, specifically,
how gun violence affected black women because that was kind
of getting lost in the noise.
People were very surprised because, I mean,
this was a gun violence rally and here I
am talking about black women.
But it's all connected.
I was affected personally by gun violence.
My sister, unfortunately, passed from that.
So that was a really difficult time for me and my family.
In fact, that's one of my-- that's what my charity does,
it provides a resource.
It's called the Yetunde Price Resource Center.
We provide a resource for people that have
been affected by gun violence.
People are really talking about it
now because it's happening more widespread,
and it's been affecting our community for years.
Why do you think it's important to have
these difficult conversations?
I think we need to get comfortable with having
uncomfortable conversations.
Yeah.
Situations are never really going
to get better if you always avoid it.
You have to take things head on.
You have to look at it head on, and you have to make noise.
[CHEERING]
I love that.
What do you want kids who are questioning
their genders to know?
That you are loved, and that although society
may say that you are different and not normal,
it is normal to question your identity,
no matter if the gender that they were assigned at birth.
If they love that, then that's fine.
You're still on your journey.
That's amazing.
But if you don't love the gender you were assigned to a birth,
and you want to explore who you truly are as a person,
I also think that's great.
What kind of tools do you use to stay informed on what's
going on in the world?
I try to use social media.
Do you feel that our generation is
very informed on social issues?
I do.
I think actually social media is a very big part in it.
Now that more people are on social media,
more people are really informed.
You cannot become what you can't see.
When I was a kid, I was a little girl
and I thought of what was available to me.
And I loved movies, but the reason
I decided I want to be an actress
is because that's really all I saw in terms
of what women did for movies.
If I had seen more women directors,
if I had understood that so many of my favorite movies
were directed by women--
I didn't know for a long time that a woman had directed
Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which
was one of my favorite movies.
Or Wayne's World.
Or Clueless.
These were movies that defined me,
but I didn't realize they were directed by women.
I just imagined male directors.
We've got to show young women every possibility.
I love that you're becoming that for other young girls.
And you couldn't see something, and you became it.
And now you are the woman that little girls are
going to be seeing, and I think that is so cool.
I think it's really cool too.
Over the last year I've learned that optimism is key.
One of the most important things to remember
is that even when we're talking about serious depressing
subject matters, things will get better
if we work at making this world a better place.
We all have the power to change the world.
Everybody.