Women’s March organizers are encouraging students, teachers and their allies to walk out of schools on March 14 to protest gun violence.
They’re demanding that Congress take legislative action on gun control in the wake of last week’s deadly school shooting in Florida instead of merely tweeting their thoughts and prayers.
“Students and staff have the right to teach and learn in an environment free from the worry of being gunned down in their classrooms or on their way home from school,” reads the group’s statement. “Parents have the right to send their kids to school in the mornings and see them home alive at the end of the day.”
The event is the brainchild of EMPOWER, the Woman’s March youth branch, and will take place exactly one month after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. It’s scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. in every time zone and last for 17 minutes — one for each victim who lost their life in the massacre.
Much like the original Women’s March, the #Enough Walkout started as one Facebook event that is quickly growing to include dozens of schools across the US, from elementary schools to colleges and universities.
Parkland, Florida, is listed as one of the communities that will participate in the demonstration, according to a map on the organization’s website.
Students who survived the shooting in Florida are speaking out in hopes that no more schools face a similar tragedy, and they’re planning to protest in Washington, D.C. on March 24 at an event organized by March For Our Lives. Another national walkout is slated for April 20, the nineteenth anniversary of the Columbine shooting in Colorado.
All of the marches share one mission: to put pressure on Congress to pass gun reform and make schools safer.