Our WCW for today is Amandla Stenberg. @amandlastenberg .
Amandla Stenberg (born October 23, 1998) is an American actress and singer. She was born in Los Angeles, California, to Karen Brailsford, an African-American spiritual counselor and writer, and Tom Stenberg, who is Danish.
Her paternal grandmother had Greenlandic Inuit ancestry. Stenberg has two older half-sisters on her father’s side. Her first name means “power” or “strength” in the South African languages of IsiXhosa and Zulu. At age four, Stenberg started doing catalog modeling shoots for Disney. She has appeared in commercials for clients such as Boeing.
She is known for her acting and public image, she was included in Time’s list of Most Influential Teens in both 2015 and 2016.
Amandla Stenberg has received several accolades, including a Teen Choice Award, an NAACP Image Award, four Black Reel Award nominations and a Critics’ Choice Award nomination.
Stenberg made her acting debut with the film Colombiana (2011), and had her breakthrough playing Rue in the film The Hunger Games (2012), for which she won the Teen Choice Award for Best Chemistry.
She had the recurring role of Macey Irving in the series Sleepy Hollow (2013–2014), voiced Bia in Rio 2 (2014) and starred as Halle Foster in the sitcom Mr. Robinson (2015).
Stenberg is an intersectional feminist. She is outspoken about her political views in interviews and on social media, and was named “Feminist of the Year” in 2015 by the Ms. Foundation for Women.
She has spoken publicly on social media about cultural appropriation.Her video, “Don’t Cash Crop My Cornrows” admonished Kylie Jenner for adopting that traditionally African-American hairstyle.
She garnered acclaim for her portrayals of Maddy Whittier in Everything, Everything(2017) and as Starr Carter in the film “The Hate U Give(2018)”, the latter of which won her the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Pictureand earned her a nomination for the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Young Actor/Actress.
Stenberg also starred as Ruby in The Darkest Minds (2018), Leyna in Where Hands Touch (2018) and Julie in the Netflixminiseries The Eddy (2020).
In 2015, she made her musical debut as part of the folk-rock duo Honeywater. Her single, “Let My Baby Stay” was featured in the film Everything, Everything (2018).
