Sixteen year old Amandla Stenberg is taking the world of pop culture by storm. So much so that Dazed Magazine named her “one of the most incendiary voices of her generation.” Born in Los Angeles, Amandla starting modeling for Disney catalog shoots by the age of just four years old. But today, she is one of the biggest activists in Hollywood for racism, feminism, and the intersectionality of the two. Amandla is best known for her role in “The Hunger Games” as Rue, but since then, she’s done so many incredible things. Perhaps the most important thing is her video called “Don’t Cash Crop On My Cornrows,” which has over 1.7 million views. The video highlights the appropriation of black culture, and really kicked off her identity as one of our generation’s best young voices in activism.
Amandla does more besides act. In her interview with Rolling Stone, she stated, “I love all mediums of art and hope to use it as a conduit for my beliefs and change.” Amandla directed her own short film called, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” based off Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story.
In addition, she also makes music and writes. Zander Hawley and Amandla make up the folk-rock duo known as Honeywater, who released their first EP in August 2015. In November 2015, “Niobe: She is Life,” will be published, which is a comic book that Amandla was the co-author of with Stranger Comics’ Sebastian Jones. Amandla is also involved with the organization “No Kid Hungry,” which works to end childhood hunger in the United States, and with “Ubuntu,” which is an organization that supports children from “cradle to career” in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.