Chanting “hey hey, ho ho, gun violence has got to go,” thousands of Evanston Township High School students on March 14 joined the nationwide student walkout for stronger gun laws.
The morning rally, held at Lazier Field, filled the stadium’s west stands to overflowing. A school official estimated almost all the school’s 3,500 students attended.
“Students were given a choice whether to attend,” said Emma Stein, a senior and the rally’s chief organizer. “It wasn’t a school-sanctioned event but the school helped us. But the vast majority of planning was done by the Student Senate and the school group Students Organized Against Racism.”
“We wanted to keep our students safe as they engage in free speech,” said ETHS Principal and District 202 Assistant Superintendent Marcus Campbell. “We are happy that they are speaking up on the issues that matter to them.”
Emma, who is a senior and president of the Student Senate, was the first of several students to speak. “Today our voices ring out in solidarity with the youth of America,” she said. “Our voices mourn, and our voices demand change. Our voices ring out for Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Columbine, Las Vegas, Orlando, Sutherland Springs, Stoneman Douglas and so many more. Our voices ring out for Dajae Coleman, Benjamin Mandujano Bradford, Yakez Semark, Kaylyn Pryor.”
She was followed by Liana Wallace, a junior, whose speech “See Something, Say Something” was delivered with a passionate fervor that alternately stunned and fired up the crowd. (Her speech is reprinted at left.)
The next speaker, Ari Badr, a senior, delivered a stinging rebuke of America’s gun culture. “Our country dismisses people of color as criminals and terrorists and at the same time defends weapons of terror,” he said. “The U.S. disregards real people with heartbeats and brains for cold metal weapons they don’t need.”
Senior Genevieve Lindley noted that ETHS seniors were born in 1999, the same year as the Columbine shootings. “In the 19 years since then, the 19 years within which we have all grown to be the young adults standing here, there have been more than 25 massacres in elementary, middle and high schools all around the country.”
The next speaker, Sofia Garcia, a senior, urged students to take action, and concluded by quoting her dad, who said, “‘Sofia, you can’t even walk into a bar but you can get a gun on your lunch break.’ That is the harsh reality in the United States because for some people their right to own and carry a gun is more important than our safety and our life. So I’m pleading with you all to please take action, call your reps, your senators, and anyone who you think will fight for us and demand some action…Enough is enough.”
Emma concluded by urging students to “take this moment into the rest of your life. Hold this sense of unity, of empowerment, of whatever you may need in the future. Take this moment into voting booths. Take this momentum, this energy, that I can feel buzzing around the stadium, into further activism….Take control of your voice.”
By Liana Wallace
You said it was mental
a mental illness
something wrong
wrong like a mother who can’t grieve
because the little boy down the street
can buy a gun more easily than a pack
of cigarettes
Because this is America,
And I’ve learned a thing or two about
mental illness
How it was harvested
How the bloody skulls belonging to
men of color would be battered
against the walls of institutionalized
prisons
And yet a diagnosis of mental illness is
too kind
Oh, but we are blind to the rifle that
kills school children
To the rifle and to the white man
holding it
America says mental illness
And mental illness is so real
But its use is purely a secret protecting
rich to a golden seal
The NRA to its profits
And human life to a deal
Because guns kill people
because guns have been killing my
people
and their bodies have been piling up on
the bottom of the Mississippi River
and now babies’ bodies’ blood spills
over textbooks
how many more babies?
how many shrieks and pops and cracks
will it take?
For you to find a piece of your soul?
Guns have been killing people
And their names have been forgotten
Medgar Evers,
Philando Castile,
Trayvon Martin
Black lives have never mattered
But now it is clear that kindergarteners,
that high schoolers
Their lives are less valuable than the profit
that fills your pockets
In this act you have committed the worst
mistake
Uniting white and people of color in a
blinding frustration
After feeding us to crime
Immigrants’ bodies shoved into detention
centers
Then into communities where light is
gone
And survival is empty bellies
Which you have fed and filled
With the guns you sold us
guns kill people
and you don’t seem to care which
communities they kill anymore
It’s come to my attention you intend to
save us with more guns
Instead of life you force death to fight
death
Placing guns in the hands of our
professors
In an effort to protect us
But all that we need protecting from
is you
you who do not know the basic
laws of light
that darkness cannot drive out darkness –
only light can do that
You said thoughts and prayers
Was it thoughts and prayers
that you hoped to save us with?
you told us to see something
say something
you said see something say something
dear founding fathers
our founding fathers
did you see this?
When you left scratched into the Constitution
a well-regulated militia
could you see that barrels of bullets
would fly through windows where
education was intended
could you not see the way a president’s
clothes would become drenched in
blood?
his pockets full with each dollar bill that
the NRA provided
could you not see it?
Have you forgotten the lives
Do you not hear their names when
you sleep?
Can you not hear the bullets that
blaze through to take breath
Yakez
Dajae
Scott Beigel
Martin Anguiano
And those under the age of 10
Do you not hear their laughter being
pulled out into blackness
Their voices crying this land was made
for you in me
Charlotte Bacon
Ana Greene
Noah Pozner
Can you not hear them
Could you not see this?
You said, “See something, say something”
they say, “See something say something”
the school children we see something
the college students they see something
Emma Gonzalesz she sees something
tomorrow he sees something
and we are saying something
we are saying something
will you say something?
We will organize
we will shut down schools
we will protest
and yell
United,
History will tell the story
And your true colors will bleed
through its books
And off of the lips of those
who refuse to forget
We hear stolen lives laughter and
we hold it
We will not exist in silence
we will not live in a world,
in a society
where human life is worthless
We see something
On our founding fathers and on
the pockets that keep the rich full
We will continue to say something.