Amanda Gorman
Amanda is an award winning poet and writer who recently became the youngest inaugural poet at the Presidential Inauguration. And before graduating cum laude from Harvard University, she went to school right here in Los Angeles! Amanda's debut children's book, "Change Sings" will be available this fall and we encourage all of our students to learn more about Amanda.
Thanks for encouraging us to "be brave enough to be the light," Amanda!
Claudette Colvin
Contrary to popular belief, Claudette was actually the first person to refuse to give up her seat on the bus - nine months before Rosa Parks did. She was arrested and put in jail and she was only 15 years old. Claudette had been learning about Black activists like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth in her segregated school and felt inspired to stand up for what was right. But Claudette’s story wasn’t spread widely like Rosa Parks, because her skin was darker and Black organizations didn’t think people would think she was reliable because she was just a kid.
Claudette still challenged the law in court and became one of the plaintiffs in Browder vs. Gayle, which was the court case that successfully overturned bus segregation laws in Alabama. She may not be as famous as Rosa Parks, but we think she was a true teen hero!
Mari Copeny
In 2014, state officials wanted to save some money by switching the water supply of Flint, Michigan from Lake Huron, to the very contaminated Flint River. It resulted in the entire city of Flint, a city of mostly Black residents, having brown water that was full of lead and bacteria. It smelled badly and people were forced to drink it and bathe in it. Hundreds became sick and no one was doing anything about it.
Until 8-year-old Mari Copeny stepped in. She wrote a letter to President Obama requesting that he to come and visit Flint for himself and help her get their clean water back. And to her surprise, he did! He met with Mari, who became known as Little Miss Flint, and approved 100 million dollars to fixing the city’s water supply. And now, after seven years, the work is finally almost complete.
Mari has continued her work by raising money for water bottle distribution in her city and has handed out over 700,000 water bottles to residents. She may just be a kid, but she opened up a dialogue about environmental racism and has been a powerful voice of an unheard community. And as a result, she helped save her city and continues to change the world. And we can’t wait to see what she does next.
Jerome Foster II
When Jerome Foster II was five years old he watched a documentary about climate change with his parents and knew he had to do something about it. He didn’t think adults were taking it seriously enough. So, within two years he was attending environmental workshops with his parents and beginning a journey into changing the world for the better – instead of us changing it for the worse.
Jerome is now 18 and has spent all of his childhood and adolescence fighting and raising awareness about the dire need for environmental policy change. He helped to organize three of the top ten largest climate marches across Washington, D.C. and spoke at the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights, as well as the United Nations Youth Climate Summit in 2019. He’s been interviewed by Al Gore and helped Jane Fonda construct Fire Drill Fridays – a weekly protest in front of the U.S. Capitol building.
Jerome founded OneMillionOfUs, which aimed to mobilize a million new, young voters for the 2020 elections. And he’s also been fighting for social justice. He’s raising awareness that Black and Brown people are disproportionately harmed by climate change because they are more likely to live in flood-prone areas, near fossil fuel facilities and other toxic sites, condemned to drink dirty water and breathe polluted air. All because of their race and class. And he’s also writing code for a virtual reality program that models the experience of refugees fleeing Guatemala to the United States because of rising temperatures, drought and food shortages due to crop disease. He wants to create ways for people to empathize with global communities that are being impacted by climate change.
Jerome is a kid creating big, brave change and we know that Gardner students can do it too!