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Thousands of Students Demand School Shootings End—Awakening to Political Life, Confronting Big Questions

Updated March 13, 2018

Tens of thousands of students from over 3,000 secondary schools in 43 states, including Alaska and Hawai′i, walked out of their classrooms for 17 minutes on March 14 to say in a collective voice: “Enough is enough—these mass school shootings have got to stop!” The 17 minutes commemorated the 17 students and adults who were killed exactly one month earlier by a former student with an assault rifle in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Parkland, Florida. Another 17 students were injured.

Students marked their protests in many different ways—with moments of silence and speeches in school auditoriums; by creating massive formations of the word “#Enough” across football fields, sometimes by hundreds and hundreds of students “dying in” on the field; with rallies and marches through the streets, and more. Each action began at 10 am in their time zone.

At Stoneman Douglas, some students got up before dawn to place hundreds of pinwheels all over the campus. And someone put a banner up near the high school with a quote by the environmental activist, journalist, and suffragette Marjory Stoneman Douglas appropriate for the day: “Be a nuisance where it counts; do your part to inform and stimulate the public to join your action. Be depressed, discouraged and disappointed at failure and the disheartening effects of ignorance, greed, corruption and bad politics—but never give up.”

Students walked out at Columbine High School in Colorado, where in 1999, before the students today were born, a massacre took the lives of 15 students, including the two shooters. And in Connecticut, high school students walked out who had attended Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown in 2012 when 20 first graders and six adults were killed.

In Washington, D.C., thousands of students protested—including hundreds who sat down in silence on Pennsylvania Avenue. (Photo: AP)

In Washington, DC, thousands of students protested—including hundreds who sat down in silence on Pennsylvania Avenue for 17 minutes with their backs to the White House and fists and signs held high in the air. At the end they chanted, “We want change!”

In front of City Hall in San Francisco, students from 21 city schools gathered on the steps. A couple hundred students then marched for miles through major streets before ending at the tourist spot in Ghirardelli Square for speeches and a moment of silence. At a high school in Atlanta, 600 students took a knee in the hallways—as 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick had done on the field during the national anthem in protest of killings of people of color by police.

These walkouts were contentious in many areas, and students often had to defy school authorities who threatened disciplinary action if they walked out. In Chicago, the Republican Party is considering suing the public school system for “coercing” students to participate in what they described as “clearly a political action.” Everywhere, students took the microphone to express what it’s like living in a country where shootings of students have become so common that schools conduct drills for what to do if an armed killer comes into their school. They also expressed determination not to let this horror continue, while mainly linking their solution to gun control, background checks, and banning assault weapons.

A Detroit high schooler read a poem about her life as a teenager, interrupted repeatedly by the refrain, “There’s been another shooting.” Afterwards she told the Detroit Free Press, “This is our fight. Our weapons are our voices... We will not let this be another shooting. It will be a damn revolution.”

Vote with Your Feet in the Streets!

In Los Angeles, students grabbed up the Refuse Fascism posters with the call to drive out the Trump/Pence Regime and the “NO!” signs. (Photo: Refuse Fascism)

Reports on the day from different parts of the country indicate that where students encountered organizers from Refuse Fascism, their response to the Call to Drive Out the Trump/Pence Regime was cheers of excitement, and students grabbed up the Refuse Fascism posters with this slogan and the “NO!” signs.

NYC Student Speaks at National Walkout March 14th

Members of the Revolution Club joined the protests in a number of cities, bringing out how “This system has no future for the youth, but the revolution does.” The Revolution Club introduced students to the work and leadership of Bob Avakian, and to the New Communism he has brought forward, saying, “It is how we’re gonna get free.” And they challenged students: “If you say you want to vote, vote with your feet in the streets. And STAY in the streets!”

Even larger protests are planned for March 24 in Washington, DC, and across the country. Meanwhile, check out this article on why revolution is the only solution, and why all the other solutions being put forward won’t cut it: “Thousands of Students Demand School Shootings End—Awakening to Political Life, Confronting Big Questions.” And stay tuned to revcom.us.