In Washington, D.C., one young person after another has been speaking impressively from the platform with clarity and emotion Saturday afternoon as hundreds of thousands of participants in a multi-generational, multi-racial March for Our Lives challenged the nation in a way unlike anything even close to what has been seen when it comes to gun reform.
One of the key messages: politicians will be watched on how they act in this matter, scrutinized for how much they understand what must done, and focused on to see “which ones we want to vote out.”
Naomi Wadler, 11 years old. Poised beyond her years, the Alexandria, Virginia, girl said she was at the march to represent African American girls and women whose stories of victimization by gun violence don’t make the evening news.
Zion Kelly, 16, from Washington, D.C., asked those in the audience to raise their hands if they had been touched by gun violence and thousands did. He raised his own hand to honor his twin brother, Zaire, who was shot to death in December when a robber tried to take his cell phone..
Edna Chavez, 17, of Los Angeles said:
"I am a youth leader. I am a survivor. I have lived in South L.A. my entire life, and have lost many loved ones to gun violence. This is normal. Normal to the point that I learned to duck from bullets before I learned how to read.
"My brother, he was in high school when he passed away. It was a day like any other day. Sunset going down on South Central. You hear pops, thinking they're fireworks. They weren't pops. You see the melanin on your brother's skin go gray. Ricardo was his name. Can you all say it with me?""
Ri-car-do! Ri-car-do!
To conclude, she switched briefly to Spanish: La lucha sigue. (The struggle/fight continues.)
Cameron Kasky, 17, one of the gun-reform leaders who has emerged among the survivors of the Valentine’s Day massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, said:
“We must educate ourselves and start conversations that keep our country moving forward, and we will. We hereby promise to fix the broken system we’ve been forced into and create a better world for the generations to come. Don’t worry, we’ve got this.” [...]
“Politicians either represent the people or get out. The people demand a law banning the sale of assault weapons. The people demand that we prohibit the sale of high capacity magazines. The people demand universal background checks. Stand for us or beware. The voters are coming.”
He listed the names of the victims of the Parkland shooting, and then noted that the march isn’t the “climax of this movement — it is the beginning.”
If the National Rifle Association thinks what we are seeing unfold today’s marches and rallies are ephemeral, that this uprising against the organization’s extremist agenda is going to be beaten into irrelevance, then fade away as in the past, they have another think coming.