March 24 Never Again Student Walkouts
How the Parkland students pulled off a massive national protest in merely 5 weeks
Updated 1317 GMT (2117 HKT) March 26, 2018
(CNN)Only v weeks ago, a gunman killed 17 of their friends and teachers at school and changed the course of their lives. This weekend, the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School led a historic march for gun control, what they called a March for Our Lives.
Here'southward how the Parkland, Florida, students went from experiencing a mass tragedy to launching a mass movement.
They took immediate action
Within days of the Feb xiv shooting, the students made clear that thoughts and prayers were not enough for them -- they wanted concrete legislative solutions to the epidemic of mass shootings and an end to the influence of the National Rifle Association.
At a rally in Fort Lauderdale, senior Emma González called BS on politicians who said no law could have prevented the massacre.
"Maybe the adults have gotten used to proverb 'it is what information technology is,' but if the states students have learned anything, information technology'south that if yous don't study, y'all will fail," González said. "And in this case if you actively do goose egg, people continually end up dead, then it's fourth dimension to start doing something."
Her classmates insisted that the time for action was now, and that could assistance them heal. They adopted the rallying cry #NeverAgain, and a nascent movement formed.
They engaged with the media
National news outlets descended on Parkland to embrace the shooting. They found survivors willing to relive the most terrifying moments of their lives and connect them to policies on gun violence.
Seniors David Hogg, an aspiring circulate journalist, and González, president of her school'south Gay-Straight Brotherhood, remained poised and eloquent every bit they fielded reporters' questions.
Junior Cameron Kasky laid out the stakes in a CNN opinion commodity: "We tin can't ignore the bug of gun control that this tragedy raises. And so, I'm asking -- no, demanding -- we take activeness at present."
They announced plans to march
Past Feb xviii, the students put anybody on detect: They planned to march for their lives in Washington on March 24.
From the outset, they pledged to center students' voices every bit gun violence survivors and future voters and invited teens across the country to join them.
"One of the things we've been hearing is that information technology's not the time even so to talk about gun control," Kasky said. "And then here's the time that nosotros're going to talk about gun control: March 24."
The rally was intended to give students everywhere a chance to "beg for their lives," he said.
The march had 3 primary demands:
- Laissez passer a law to ban the assail weapons;
- Finish the sale of loftier-capacity magazines;
- Implement laws that require groundwork checks on all gun purchases, including online and at gun shows.
They raised funds
A GoFundMe campaign to support the rally raised more than than $1.7 meg in three days on tiptop of $2 million in individual donations from Hollywood personalities including George and Amal Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg.
The funds would make the March 24 rally possible, paying for supplies, equipment and coordination of the massive event. As of Sunday, more than 42,000 people had donated well-nigh $three.five million to the online fundraiser.
They built excitement through small victories
While some shooting victims were still hospitalized and funerals were beginning, students boarded a omnibus to the land capitol for a lobbying day.
The experience galvanized them in dissimilar directions, and many continued to fight forth with Stoneman Douglas parents at the state level for stricter gun laws. They didn't get the set on weapons ban they wanted. But they took heart in Gov. Rick Scott'southward passage of measures opposed past the NRA, such as raising the minimum historic period for gun purchases.
Momentum grew for their cause as companies cut ties with the NRA. At a CNN boondocks hall, they went head to caput with Sen. Marco Rubio and NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch on gun laws.
Meanwhile, they continued to put force per unit area on the federal government to pass universal groundwork checks.
On March 14, one month after the shooting, scores of students across the United states walked out of form to honor the 17 victims and make sure that calls for change take into account the broader context of gun violence.
"We are standing in solidarity with the youth from the mass shooting, but we also know the repercussions of what's going to happen next could autumn on black and brownish people," said Keno Walker, who helped loftier school students organize walkouts in Miami.
They welcomed support
Equally #NeverAgain supporters set their sights on the Washington rally, partner organizations stepped up.
Giffords, the gun rubber advocacy group named for congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, a mass shooting survivor, provided transportation to Washington for some Stoneman Douglas families with the aid of New England Patriots CEO Robert Kraft, who provided the team'southward jet to aid families go to Washington.
Other Stoneman Douglas students traveled with families and friends to the march. Senior Julia Bishop said she chose to attend the rally in Washington in order to "feel the heart of back up" independent within the movement.
"I wanted to stand up on Capitol Hill in the shadow of our country's legislature and express how truly enraged I am that my friends are at present expressionless due to gun violence and there had been nothing done most it."
Everytown for Gun Rubber supplied operational and logistical resources for marches in Atlanta, Chicago, Columbus, Ohio; Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas, Milwaukee and New Orleans, the group said Sunday. Additionally, the organisation said it gave out $5,000 grants to more than than 200 local organizers across the country to ensure they had operational resource. The group helped to support transportation for students from cities including Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, New York City, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia to travel to the march in D.C.
Ben and Jerry's also chipped in with grants to fund bus transportation to the march.
For amusement, Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande, Jennifer Hudson, Common, Demi Lovato and Vic Mensa committed to performing.
Meanwhile, people in the nation's majuscule lent a hand. Xi mothers from metro D.C. banded together to discover free housing for participants from out of boondocks. Chef José Andrés' ThinkFoodGroup and various DC restaurants offered free and discounted food to student marchers.
They invited more voices
The 24-hour interval earlier the rally, Stoneman Douglas senior David Hogg said the media'southward biggest mistake while covering the schoolhouse'due south shooting was "non giving black students a voice."
When they took the stage at March for Our Lives, Hogg and his classmates fabricated sure to not make the same mistake. Speakers from Chicago, Brooklyn and Los Angeles also appeared onstage to describe how gun violence affected their communities.
"We recognize that Parkland received more attention considering of its abundance," Jaclyn Corin, a survivor of the Parkland shooting, said in her speech. "But we share this stage today and forever with those communities who have e'er stared down the barrel of a gun."
Corin was joined onstage by Yolanda Renee King, Martin Luther Male monarch Jr.'southward granddaughter. The 9-twelvemonth-old said that like her grandfather, she too has a dream, in which "enough is enough."
Naomi Wadler, an elementary schoolhouse educatee from Virginia, said she was speaking on behalf of African-American girls "whose stories don't make the front folio" of national newspapers.
They encouraged anybody to attend
The students invited others to join them and provided a toolkit to help people organize their own marches. More than 800 groups marched in cities across the US and internationally, including in London, Madrid, Rome and Tokyo.
In Boston, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School graduate Leslie Chiu said the march was most gun violence in general, non just school shootings.
"This is not just in Parkland," she said. "Information technology is in every community, especially those of colour. ... This is not a moment. This is a motility."
They promised there's more than to come
Pupil-activists elswhere are calling for another national walkout on April xx, the 19th ceremony of the Columbine Loftier Schoolhouse shooting. The Network for Public Instruction is urging people on the same day to to bring attending to school condom through walkouts, sit-ins or rallies.
Otherwise, #NeverAgain is turning its attention to the November midterms to vote out politicians who don't appear to support gun police reform.
"They've gotten used to being protective of their position, the safety of inaction," Hogg told the crowd in Washington on Sat.
"To those politicians supported by the NRA that allow the connected slaughter of our children and our hereafter, I say go your resumés ready."
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Source: https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/26/us/march-for-our-lives/index.html
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