March for Our Lives: The Clarion Call of America’s Young People
June 10, 2022
June 10, 2022
In 2018, many of the surviving students from the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida alongside young people nationwide affected by gun violence organized the first March for Our Lives, a grassroots event that resulted in the largest single-day action calling for gun safety and standing against gun violence in the country’s history.
Then, like now, MENTOR sought to both amplify the voices and agency of our young people and their clarion call. Additionally, we elevated resources for the everyday conversations mentors might have with young people in processing the trauma of violence and the threat of violence that too many of our young people experience. Ultimately, on this issue, at this time, with its far-reaching impact and grounded in the courageous and brilliant voices and civic actions of or young people, we want to be the best possible adult allies. We seek to serve as a megaphone for the urgent common sense demands of a diverse and broad coalition of our young people who inspire us all. They demonstrate that, through trauma, loss, and solidarity, we can and must demonstrate in equally steadfast belief in change and progress no matter how stubborn.
On Saturday, June 11, our young people call us once again to nationwide civic action. Once again, we will demand change alongside them calling for the passage of common-sense gun safety laws, supported by the majority of Americans, including responsible gun owners. We will call for reforms that will give our schools and communities the opportunity to be the safe and enriching places they must be for our students, educators, mentors, and families to gather, learn, and grow.
Since the first March for Our Lives in 2018, firearms have now become the leading cause of death for young people in the U.S. Between 2012 and 2022, there were more than 200 school shootings and thousands more mass casualty incidents of gun violence. And, 14 million students in the U.S. currently attend schools with police officers but without school counselors, nurses, psychologists, or social workers. We don’t have to wonder why our young people are experiencing a mental health crisis or to falsely assign all of this causality to the generationally defining events of the pandemic.
MENTOR centers our work and values around determining what it means to be fully present for our young people. No matter the political discourse, polarizing issues or events of a given news cycle, we are guided by one simple code: do whatever it takes so our young people feel seen, valued, understood, and heard. Sometimes, showing up for our young people in this way can be complicated, and we’ve devoted our work to being a guide in that pursuit for individuals and organizations and in a multitude of contexts. On this issue, in this moment, it is crystal clear.
Over the years, and again in recent weeks, and through so many organizations and youth-led, youth-informed grassroots movements, young people have made their needs clear to anyone who will listen, demanding change on both local and national scale and around gun violence in all its forms including:
- The March for Our Lives event in 2018 was the personification of impacted students’ and their allies desire to see change. Young people were angry, traumatized, and motivated to move public discourse and public policy around gun violence beyond thoughts and prayers.
- Students Demand Action has been organizing high school and college students for years to help them achieve their goals of educating and advocating to end gun violence.
- Team Enough is a youth-led initiative focused on eradicating gun violence by educating and calling on young people to take meaningful action in their communities.
- Fourteen-year-old Yolanda Renee King recently published a piece in The Washington Post calling on fellow young people to stand against gun violence because of the failure of the generations that came before them to make change.
America’s youth have agency and their lives and safety are at stake. And now more than ever — just as the pandemic thrust the balance of risk and safety and health of our students into the spotlight — we have a responsibility to ensure they are seen and heard in our collective actions. Gun violence affects us all and so once again, we see the most acutely affected taking on the burden of demanding changes that will allow people of all ages and communities to find places of increased safety and thriving.
When my mentee, family, and I march this weekend, it is these collective voices of our young people — over the years, and in this moment — that buoy us. These are the voices that lift us as we move forward, seeking incremental progress in the face of extreme headwinds and the stubborn, divisive zero-sum interests. With our young people this weekend, we will show and find strength and solidarity. To mentors across the country, we have the urgent opportunity to let our young people know that we support them as they raise their voices to demand change, as they, and we, march again for our lives. On this day and every day with our actions, our amplification, and our simple guide that they feel safe, valued, understood and heard, we make both a present and a future alongside them — in actions big and small, and guided by their clarity, courage, and perspective.