Good evening Loves,
It’s the day after the March For Our Lives and I’ve finally had time to go through all the photos I took and really reflect on how I feel after the March For Our Lives in Washington D.C. I have so many things to say about this historic event.
First let’s start with the general energy of the march. There was so many emotions throughout the event from the moment when people started to show up to the moment everyone was leaving and placing their signs on different monuments/statues. I’m going to start from the beginning of the march. We left our hotel around 8:30 and walked down to where the mainstage was. At that time there was already hundreds of people near the stage. It was a euphoric feeling seeing so many people show up to fight for our lives. There were people from the age of 1-100 and from all around the world. The one girl I talked to was from Wisconsin, while one of the families was from our hotel Australia.
When the actual event started and the first speakers came out everyone lifted there signs and started chanting. The most emotional speech that I feel was given, was by Emma Gonzalez who started a timer before walking on stage. She spoke for about two minutes and then was silent for 4 minutes and twenty seconds. Tears streamed down her face as she watched as the entire crowd was silent. When her timer went off, she explains that the shooter has ceased fire, dropped his weapon, and exited the school blending in with the students exiting the building, and disappears for an hour before being caught by police. She finished her speech and marched off of the stage and into the arms of her friends and peers who embraced her in their arms.
Jaclyn Corin, a survivor of shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas brought a special guest with her to the march. Corin gave her speech then walked off stage and brought out 9 year old Yolanda Renee King, Martin Luther King Jr’s granddaughter. She gave her own speech emotional speech and ended it with having the crowd chant, “Spread the word! Have you heard? All across the nation, we are going to be a great generation!”
On the topic of chants, one of the most repeated ones was, “Hey, Hey, ho, ho, the NRA has got to go.” While the most repeated by speakers was, NEVER AGAIN and ENOUGH.
An emotional moment during the event is when Sam Fuentes, a Stoneman Douglas student who was shot in both legs and still has a piece of shrapnel behind her eye, had a simple request for the crowd before she exited the stage, she wanted us to sing happy birthday to one of her slain peers, Nicholas Dworet.
Nicholas would have turned 18 on March 24. Fuentes started singing and soon the entire crowd joined along. The Stoneman Douglas students sitting on the stage had tears in their eyes as they joined in with the 800,000 people in the crowd.
The posters in the crowd were amazing. There were so many types of posters. Some were witty, some called out congress, some made fun of Trump, but all of them held significance. Teachers carried signs that had lists of items they actually needed instead of guns.
Ryan Deitsch started out his speech saying “We can not make America safe again until we arm out teachers {Pause}We need to arm our teachers {Pause}We need to arm them with pencils, pens, paper, and the money they need!” He received many boo’s until he got to the part about arming them with the pencils, pens, paper, and money they need.
He goes on to say that we need to arm students with the facts and the knowledge they need to live in the real world. He also says that social media and internet give us the knowledge we need an allow us to stay connected. He talks about his amazement with not being able to see the end of the crowd in D.C.
It was great that they had musical acts in between speakers. With Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ben Platt performing their collaboration of “The Story of Tonight” from Hamilton and “You Will Be Found” from Dear Evan Hansen, to Miley Cyrus singing “The Climb”. The one performance I didn’t like was Ariana Grande. She made to much of a show out of it.
Also in between speakers where PSA videos of students and adults giving statistics, criticizing the government, and picking on news reporters. One video was Veterans For Gun Reform. The PSA has veterans talking about how AR-15’s are like the guns they used for war. The one quote that makes the entire video is, “They are meant for one thing and one thing only, and that’s not something I want in my country.” That quote made the crowd go into a fit of cheers.
This event was indeed historic. All of the speakers each added their own layer to the narrative. Each volunteer made sure that they were keeping everything in order and also helping people registering people to vote. The police and EMTs made sure everyone was safe and that people got the emergency medical care they needed.
The only thing I can hope is that the government listens to all of our voices or if not have their resumes ready because we will vote them out.
Kisses,
Cennedi
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