The student survivors at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are planning protests and school walkouts for the coming months—but they’ve set off something now, too. Ten miles away from Parkland, in West Boca Raton, students gathered for 17 minutes of silence, a minute for each of the victims killed at MSD. But the silent mourning turned into a vocal and determined protest:
"If you cannot use guns the right way, there shouldn't be guns at all," one student yelled, drawing roars from the crowd of his classmates, who chanted, "We! Want! Change!"
Suddenly, a few students bolted to leave the campus, ignoring the commands by school staff to stay — and much of the student body followed, skipping classes to march to Stoneman Douglas in the city of Parkland . It was 10-mile walk.
Many of these aren’t kids who’ve been activists. But they’re motivated by something so big, in the face of adult inaction:
And now that she's protested once, [senior Shelby] Pierre wants to protest again. "I just feel like some people might be scared to protest. It was real nerve-wracking," Pierre said. "But once you do it, you feel liberated, and you feel like you're connecting. All the people that you don't know who's hurting, you find out they're hurting with you, and you're just more connected through protesting."
Antonia Olivares, a 16-year-old sophomore, had never protested before joining the unplanned walkout.
"I've never actually been part of something so spontaneous. It was from the heart. Everyone was so emotional," Olivares said. "We knew this had to be bigger than 17 minutes of silence."
They walked 10 miles with no planning—and students at several other high schools in Florida have also staged protests. Florida politicians haven't gotten the message yet, but it’s time for the gun-boosters to be scared.