18 Under 18 Black Women to be Acknowledged in the Black Community

Written By Nelly Ghansa

Every year the Dinner Table recognizes 18 black Women under 18 years old who are doing amazing things in our community. The Dinner Table honestly wishes there were women we could acknowledge in our community at the awards but there is only so much we can do within the small amount of time we are alloted at the awards ceremony. Since we can’t give more awards, this blog article serves as a method to organize eighteen more talented young women within the black community who are doing amazing things, the best part is that all these women are all under 18 years old proving that we are capable of achieving great things no matter how old we are.  

1.) Zandra Cunningham, 18

Zandra Cunningham is an entrepreneur from Buffalo New York. Her career began in 2010 when she asked her dad to buy her lip balm and refused to by instead insisting that she make her own. By her 10th birthday she released her own line of lip balm and lotion products that consisted of natural, healthy and non irritable ingredients. Her brand Zandra Beauty  has since been acknowledged by major publications like Seventeen Magazine, and etcetera. Today her brand continues to grow.  

2. Mo’ne Davis, 17 

Davis is a former Little League baseball player and is one of the two girls to play the 2014 Little League World Series. During this she became the first female to win and pitch a shutout and the first black girl to play in the Little League World Series. At the moment she is playing basketball, however she will be attending Hampton University as a softball commit this upcoming fall where she hopes to also explore her newfound love for basketball. 

3. Marley Dias,14

At eleven Dias was an avid reader however she was often fed up with the books that would be provided for her at school because they lacked diversity. As a result she began a campaign called #1000BlackGirlBooks with the goal of collecting and donating 1,000 books that features black girls as a main character. Since launching the campaign, Dias has collected over 9,000 books and has even released a book of her own.

4. Gabrielle Jordan, 18

At nine years old, the entrepreneur created a luxury jewelry business which she named Jewelz of Jordan. One business venture led to another, she is now the co-founder of the ExCel Youth Mentoring Institute where she provides educational  resources to the youth in her community. As if that wasn't going above and beyond, she  is a #1 Amazon Bestseller to the book she wrote titled The Making of a Young Entrepreneur: A Kids Guide to Developing the Mindset for Success which has sold nearly 10,000 copies.

5. Marsai Martin, 14 

Martin has quite the resume for someone as young as her. She has won two NAACP image awards among many other awards for her work on tv show Black-ish, and later this year she will be executive producing the movie Little which she will also be starring in with Issa Rae.  This makes her one of the youngest producers in the film industry. 

6. Essynce Moore

Essynce Moore is a sixteen year from Hillside New Jersey who is the author of three books. She is the first black teen author to have all three of books included in a public school curriculum. At only 13 she also began her own spa in New Jersey called Essynce Couture University which is exclusively for tweens and teens. To add on to the list of many accomplishments, she has booted her own online magazine.

7. Naomi Osaka, 18 

Osaka is a Japanese American tennis player who grew up in New York City, she has been playing since she was three years. At the age of sixteen she won US Open  defeating the  23-time major US Open championship winner Serena Williams! 

8. Storm Reid, 15 

At just age fifteen Reid has participated in hit movies such as a Wrinkle in Time, 12 years a slave, and more! She is the first African American to be a principal dancer at the American Ballet theater. She was in fact awarded for this honor by major fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg at her DVF Awards. Adding icing to the cake, at such a young age she is already heavily involved in a variety of activism groups.

9. Kheris Rogers

At just ten years old, Rogers  made headlines by  beginning  her clothing line “Flexin’ in my Complexion” which was merch that embraced black beauty. She was inspired to create the line after being bullied for her dark complexion. By eleven years old she was the youngest fashion designer ever to have a clothing line  featured at New York Fashion week.

10. India Skinner

11.  Mikayla Sharrieff

12. Bria Snell

These three high schools girls from Washington D.C were in their junior year of High School last year when they became finalists for the NASA Optimus Prime Spinoff Promotion and Research Challenge. A voting system which put them in the lead to attend the program caused them to face an act of injustice has hackers hacked the system and wiped out there votes in an act of racism. Thankfully there was proof that they were in  the lead and were able to attend the program. They even got honored by MIT for their persistence and for excellence in their experiment So far. Sharrieff has committed to Spelman College for this upcoming fall, and  Snell has committed to Louisiana State University this fall. All three of these women hope to pursue careers in STEM. 

13. Tania Speaks, 18 

As a young girl, Speaks was always bullied for her eyebrows, as young girl her mother always told her not to worry about the bullies because one day everyone would want eyebrows like hers. Despite her mothers encouraging words, one day when she couldn’t handle the bullying anymore she made the choice to cut off her eyebrow hairs with scissors.She ended up cutting herself and hurting yourself badly which landed her a trip in the hospital, she also permanently damaged her brows. As a result she decided to make her own brow serum that would help her brows grow back. Since them she has turned her homemade recipe into a business that has helped several women across the country. She even know has a line of Beard Boost for men. Her business grew by 60% in her first five months. She did all of this while graduating in the top five percent of her high school class. She is now currently a freshman at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York. 

14. Ayaana Akousa Aschkar-Stevens, 18

The British Ghanaian Model who has been named top 10 models to watch out for by OkayAfrica made her debut as a model at only sixteen. Within three years she has modeled she has already made modeling debuts with Burberry, Calvin Klein, Fendi, DKNY, Alexander Wang and more. She has also landed a cover on Italian Vogue Magazine. Months before cover on Vogue she experienced a suicide attempt which put her in a coma from the trauma. Since then, she has created an online platform called Gurls Talk in order to give girls a safe space to talk about thier sexuality, mental health, body image, and more. 

15. Haile Thomas, 17 

Thomas is the youngest Certified integrative nutrition coach in the United States.  At just 12 years old she created her nonprofit organization called HAPPY (Healthy Active Positive Purposeful Youth) which aimed at advocating for the need of free/affordable plant based foods in schools and summer camps, especially the ones located in lower income neighborhoods. She has not only encouraged over 15,000 kids to be involved in her activism, but she has also gotten major publicity from the Today Show, Dr. Oz, O Magazine, Teen Vogue, and more. In describing Haile Michelle Obama said “Hailie is an example for all of you, what your little powerful voices can do to change the world.”

16. Mikaila Ulmer, 14

At four Ulmer’s parents encouraged her to create a product for a children’s business competition at the Acton Children’s Business Fair. After getting stung by a bee twice at the fair, she began doing research about bees and learned how important they are to the ecosystem. She therefore became fascinated with it. During this time period, Ulmer’s grandmother sent her a 1940s family cookbook which included her special recipe for Flaxseed Lemonade. This inspired her to Create Me and the Bees Lemonade where she uses local honey to sweeten the lemonade. A portion the money she receives from her brand goes to leading workshops on how to save honeybees and towards organizations fighting to save honeybees. 

17. Anaya Willabus, 13

Meet Brooklyn’s youngest chapter  book writer! Willabus wrote her first book at just eight  years old and it has since sold over 3,000 copies! In her parents native country Guyana, the local government has added her book as a required reading for the elementary school curriculum as it relates to a lot of personal issues young students might face. Since then she has written another chapter book. As of now she is working towards becoming a teacher in the future, and is planning on writing several more books with time to come. 

18. Tiara Willis, 16

Chances are you’ve seen many of your followings post or repost to @MakeupForWoc on instagram or Twitter, well little did you know 16 year old Tiara Willis is the face behind the pages which have accumulated thousands of followers within the past few years. The New York City native noticed that there wasn’t much representation of black women in the beauty industry when she started doing makeup artistry and therefore set out to create pages where she would show off not only her makeup looks but the looks of other black women. Outside of twitter, at only 16 she is enrolled in college, and plans on furthering her brand while she is school. Today is acknowledged by many black influencers for her strides in the beauty industry as well as many makeup brands who sponsor her.