Need to Start a Revolution? Ask a Teen Girl

Sixteen-year-old environmental activist Greta Thunberg transfixed the world in 2019 when she condemned global leaders for their inaction on climate change. She’s one of thousands of teen girls who’ve agitated for social change in the past centuries, from Claudette Colvin who refused to give up her seat on a segregated Alabama bus to Mabel Ping-Hua Lee who led a march for women’s suffrage. In a new history, writer and editor Mattie Kahn explores how girls have contributed to social and political movements, the qualities they bring to their activism and the dangers they’ve faced in their fights for the greater good. Kahn’s book is “Young and Restless: The Girls Who Sparked America’s Revolutions.”