The four young black actresses and activists - Amandla Stenberg, Zendaya Coleman, Willow Smith, and Yara Shahidi - started an informal group after meeting at an awards show to educate others on issues related to black culture and lives. As talented performers in their own right, they have come together through social media to spread messages of empowerment and address social injustices. While some see them as too young to comment on such topics, they believe their platforms help bring awareness to important causes.

1. “
”
do the next women.
[Yara] We want to empower
others. As four young black
girls working together we want
to show others that we should
work with and support other
females
What are you hoping to
achieve as a group?
[Zendaya] We want to continue
doing videos, making spoken
words and raising awareness.
[Willow] Drawing
attention to matters
close to our herts is
what we have all
been about and
what we will contin-
ue to be about
[Amandla] We are
all interested in creating oppor-
tunities for people as we our-
selves know people of colour
are not able to take these roles
and opportunities if they are
not there.
[Yara] I think we would also like
to start making short films and
eventually make actual produc-
tions and venturing into more
things.
What is your message for
young black girls wanting to
follow in your footsteps?
[Willow] Strive for your dreams,
believe the hype. Black girls
are magic and you can achieve
anything they want to. The co-
lour of your skin should never
an obstacle.
“
Which artists, actors and
activists do you look up to?
Beyoncé, Erykah Badu, Viola
Davis, Janelle Monae, there
are so many!
Style hero?
Solange!
What are you listening to
right now?
The Miseducation of
Lauryn Hill, definitely a time-
less album, we could listen to
it forever
What are you watching?
We are trying to catch up with
Orange is the new black even
though we have seen all the
spoilers :(
Favourite shop?
H&M and Asos but we love
shopping at vintage shops for
‘throwback’ clothing
Go to snacks?
Popcorn!
What is your favourite app?
Tidal, Uber and Twitter
We are described
as a young group
speaking on black
culture and the
social issues,
stigmas and in-
justices
Fire
Questions
The girls can be found on all
of their offical Twitter, You-
tube, Instagram and Tumblr
accounts at
@Amandlas
@purplefluer
@Zendaya
@Yarashahdi
Drawing atten-
tion to matters
is what we have
all been about
and what we will
continue to be
about
audience is sharing what we
put out all over social media
with older audiences.
[Willow] People who are just
five years older than us end
not to want to hear what we
have to say because people
don’t want to be educated by
young girls. People tend to feel
like we don’t know what were
talking about. However i feel if
anything our age has contrib-
uted to the amount of media
acknowledgement.
The group has
received a lot of
media attention
because of the
topics you disc-
uss, what are your
thoughts on this?
[Zendaya] We are described
as a young group speaking on
black culture and the social
issues, stigmas and injustices
relating to it but we are not only
for people of colour we also
touch on feminism and lgbt
issues and aim to educate and
inform people of all races and
cultures more than anything.
The image you have creat-
ed for yourselves revolves
around the idea of self love
and empowerment, how im-
portant do you feel this is?
[Yara] We feel this is hugely
important, it is what our group
was built upon. Our aims as
a group are to help our com-
munity move forward. We
feel a perfect place to start is
by educating black girls and
women to understand that they
are beautiful regardless of how
dark or light their skin is re-
gardless of what society says.
[Amandla] That their features
look as good on them as they

2. The names of the four young black girls who are making their name known.
Amandla Stenberg, Zendaya Coleman, Willow Smith and Yara Shahidi are tal-
ented singers, dancers and actors who in their spare time have come to-
gether to create an activist group taking social media by storm. Educat-
ing people on matters relating to black lives to why The Miseducation of
Lauryn Hill is one of the best albums of all time.
How did this all start?
[Amandla] Individually we all
had had a growing interest in
our culture and the issues re-
lating to it and like many others
we wanted to find more people
with similar interests. With us
all being in the same industry
pretty much we all knew of
each other. Early last year we
were all invited to the Black
Girls Rock award show where
we were all awarded for shar-
ing our thoughts on the issues
our community has faced as
black people. From there we
kind of realised the potential
and impact we could have if
we could have if we shared our
views together.
The group does not have an
official name, was this pur-
posely done?
[Yara] Kind of. We were so
eager to join together a name
was never really on our mind
and even now is not really
something we stress about.
We feel as though not having
a name for our group means
we are still acknowledged for
what we do individually and not
solely recognised for what we
do together.
[Amandla] But people have
kind of come up with their own
name for us anyway
[Willow] Yeah ‘woke gurls’ is
what we always get referred to
as.
Do you feel as though age
effects the way the industry
and media sees you?
[Zendaya] I think as artists we
are not impacted that heavily
by our age because people
of all ages watch our shows,
movies and listen to our songs
but by when it comes to us asa
group we are. We obviously
get a bigger response from
people our age but our
Yara
Willow
Zendaya
Amandla