National March For Our Lives Rallies On Saturday, June 11

by

Above Photo: Looking west, people fill Pennsylvania Avenue during the “March for Our Lives” rally in support of gun control, on March 24, 2018, in Washington, D.C.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel reports, March for Our Lives plans marches across the country on June 11:

It’s time, once again, to take to the streets, various organizers with [the youth-led movement] March for Our Lives announced on a country-wide call Wednesday evening in the wake of the mass shooting at a Texas elementary school where 19 children and two teachers were murdered.

Chapters across the country will host marches on Saturday, June 11, organizers from several states said. Marches in Florida will be in Parkland, Miami and Orlando.

The group also plans a mass march that same day in Washington, D.C., from noon to 2 p.m.

The June 11 marches will come just weeks after the May 24 massacre of 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman barricaded himself inside a classroom and a targeted mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., 10 days earlier where 10 Black people were murdered and three others injured.

Hundreds listened to the call Wednesday night, some joining in from Buffalo, Pittsburgh, El Paso and other cities that have reeled in the aftermath of mass shootings.

With the U.S. House and Senate back in session the week of June 6, Zeenat Yahya, director of policy for March for Our Lives, said the “plan is to flood the offices” of lawmakers in D.C. that week leading up to the Saturday march.

The organization’s policy team will be arranging meetings in the Capitol and in D.C. to lobby for universal background checks. A bill requiring them, H.R. 8, passed the House but has languished in the Senate, which refuses

“We’re going to force every single member of Congress to answer to the millions of us showing up in D.C.,” Yahya said.

Yahya said they are still ironing out final details for the D.C. trip. Young people across the country are invited to join the march, she said. The organization will have travel scholarships available.

Arianna Kelawala, a member of the national organizing team, called the epidemic of gun violence repeatedly seen across the country a “uniquely American tragedy.”

“I started doing this when work when I was 14 years old, and I only just recently celebrated my 18th birthday. And here we are, with thousands of folks on here, on this call, who came together to support this movement that is at its core about saving lives,” Kelawala said.

Olivia Julianna, an activist and organizer in Houston and native Texan, said after the Parkland shooting, when she was a freshman in high school, a state representative spoke at her school.

“That was the first time I saw an auditorium full of high schoolers, begging for a politician to care about their lives,” she said. “And to act on protecting our lives.”

She reflected on the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School where 20 children and six adults were killed at the school in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, 2012. Many who are now organizing with March for Our Lives were in elementary school at the time of that shooting.

“We’ve been saying the same things over and over and over again for the last 10 years,” Julianna said.

She stressed the importance of voting in federal, state and local elections to the listeners and urged them to do more than cast a vote.

“You also have to organize. Organizing is the backbone to a healthy democracy and a strong sense of community,” Julianna said.

Joining in the collective marches, Julianna said, is a way to send a message: “That we will not sit back and continue to let these kinds of tragedies happen.”





Discover more from Blog for Arizona

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

2 thoughts on “National March For Our Lives Rallies On Saturday, June 11”

  1. Well, I just watched a few videos from outside the school in Uvalde where police and sheriff’s had the place surrounded but did not enter for an hour while the killer was inside slaughtering children.

    The cops and sheriff’s were however bravely threatening the parents who were trying to get inside the school with tasers and even had one parent on the ground.

    F’n cowards.

    I may never get the screams of the parents out of my head as they were threatened by the “good guys with guns” while their little boys and girls had their bodies torn to shreds with a military assault weapon.

    I won’t even get into the color of the children and parents vs. the color of the cops.

    F’ Texas, F’ the cops, F’ the GQP, F’ the NRA, F’ the gun manufacturers, F’ Sinema, F’ Fox News and F’ the rest.

    Gonna’ log out of life for a bit, I’m literally shaking with anger at these sick child murder supporting freaks.

    • “Release the autopsy photos…”

      Sharpie, I was going to write about this yesterday but decide not to just yet.

      We all know the story of Mamie Till, mother of Emmett Till. Emmett Till had a beautiful face that was hacked up and destroyed by his murderers. Mrs. Till understood the power of an image and let the world see via Jet Magazine what the white supremacist demons from hell did to her boy.

      I remember thinking about this after the Sandy Hook massacre. Those kids were so young with their adorable little baby faces. When Congress failed to do anything, I thought about the crime scene. Maybe the photos of six year old children shot multiple times would outrage enough people to light a fire under the a$$ of the US Congress.

      I’m not a ghoul, quite the opposite. And to this day I cannot look at that picture of Emmett Till in his coffin without imagining what happened to him and seething with anger there was no justice. But his mother sacrificed her privacy because the world needed to see the aftermath of a lynching. She chose to save other mothers’ boy if she could, she knew the moment was right.

      Nothing, absolutely nothing else has worked so far. Maybe it’s time now for the pictures.

Comments are closed.