In coordination with Everytown for Gun Safety, a group of survivors of the violent shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School organized a march across DC with sister marches across the US. These marches took place on March 24th. The shooting took place on February 14th, leaving 17 dead and even more injured. According to the mission statement of the march, “The kids and families of March For Our Lives will take to the streets of Washington, DC to demand that their lives and safety become a priority. The collective voices of the March For Our Lives movement will be heard.” The goal was to open up the conversation about guns to show politicians with closed ears that the time to talk about this is now. This movement has garnered support from public figures including Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Kate Capshaw, and George and Amal Clooney. The primary march in Washington D.C. took place on Pennsylvania Avenue NW, between 3rd and 12th Street at 12:00 PM. Attendance reached over 200,000 people, many of whom were young students looking to show their support.
In order to help students looking to attend without a parent or guardian find lodging, high school seniors Gabrielle Zwi and Michaela Heonig created an exchange-like program pairing up these students with others from the D.C. area willing to share their homes. So long as the student provided a signed permission slip from their parent or guardian, they could be assigned to one of the 700 hundred homes who have already agreed to take in attending middle school, high school, or college students for free. As of yesterday, about half of these homes were already filled with students from states including Florida, Tennessee, and California.
For those who couldn’t make it to the D.C. march, there were sister marches of varying scales across the nation. The biggest nearby was in Manhattan, NY at 10:00 AM. A county-wide march took place from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM in front of the steps of the Bergen County Courthouse at 10 Main Street, Hackensack, NJ. Politicians including Congressman Josh Gottheimer and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer spoke at the March.
Emily Ertle
staff writer
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