Youth leaders and student activists were strong forces behind the 1960s civil rights movement because of the courage and heroism they demonstrated. One of the nation’s first civil rights walkouts led by high school students took place in my hometown of McComb, Mississippi, in 1961. In 1967, thousands of college students led a march from the Lincoln Memorial to the Pentagon in Washington D.C. to protest the Vietnam War.
Now, in 2018, the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, are kick-starting a movement that is aiming to spread the same message as those past campaigns: enough is enough. Anyone who doubts their sincerity, intelligence or ability to create change should be ashamed.
If there is any demographic in our country capable of sparking a revolution, history has proven it is young Americans. Their decision to provide a spotlight to issues that lawmakers fail to address help progress our country in the right direction. The student survivors of the mass shooting that took place at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14 did not have to speak out in the manner they have, but they voluntarily chose to. By doing so, they have launched a nationwide conversation about gun violence unlike any other.
More than a dozen companies have cut ties with the National Rifle Association since the shooting in Parkland by vowing to stop offering discounts to its members. Whether you agree with the decision of the companies or not, it must be recognized that this did not happen following any previous mass shooting. It happened after the mass shooting at a school where the survivors displayed resilience by speaking publicly, organizing marches and leading a nationwide movement just days after their classmates were killed.
The pressure the students have placed on members of Congress to pass gun control legislation is undeniable, as well. It has been widely thought if nothing was done after 20 first grade students were killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, then change would never be enacted at all. Well, the students of Stoneman Douglas appear determined to debunk that idea.
“Let’s ask ourselves: Do we really think 17-year-olds, on their own, are going to plan a nationwide rally?” said former Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Georgia, on CNN on Feb. 20. The answer is “yes.” This is the first mass shooting of a school in America where the survivors have been raised in the age of social media and are familiar with the powerful extent of the internet.
Facebook and Twitter were nonexistent during the Columbine High School massacre in 1999. The students who survived the Sandy Hook shooting were much too young to even comprehend the evil that took the lives of their classmates. The surviving students of Stoneman Douglas have used their media savviness to voice their thoughts, opinions and rebuttals to politicians like we have never seen before.
“I’m not going to let anybody say that this is how I should be feeling, because I know how I should be feeling,” said Emma Gonzalez, one of the Stoneman Douglas survivors at a gun control rally in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “I’m the one who experienced it. We’re the ones who experienced it.”
The students of Stoneman Douglas have organized a “March for Our Lives” protest on March 24 in Washington D.C. I will be among the thousands of people in attendance marching beside them. Whether or not any form of gun control
legislation is passed within the following months is unforeseeable, but I cannot think of a better place to start. History is certainly on our side.
Seth Nieman is a 22-year-old mass communication senior from McComb, Mississippi.