'Students have just had enough:' Walkouts begin across the nation one month after Florida shooting
Source: The Washington Post
By Joe Heim and Susan Svrluga March 14 at 10:05 AM
Students at thousands of schools across the country began walking out of class at 10 a.m. Wednesday to protest gun violence and to mark one month since a mass shooting left 17 dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
The nationally organized walkouts, most of which will last 17 minutes in symbolic tribute to the Florida victims, are unprecedented in recent American history. Supporters say they represent a realization of power and influence by young people raised on social media who have come of age in an era of neverending wars, highly publicized mass shootings and virulent national politics.
In the Washington region, hundreds of high school students from local districts gathered at the White House and began to sit in silence for 17 minutes in front of the White House and planned to march later to the Capitol, where they hope to meet with lawmakers. At Columbine High School in Colorado, where shooters killed 12 students and one teacher in 1999, students will take part in a memorial at a field on campus. And at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, still recovering from a violent white supremacist rally last summer, student leaders are expecting the biggest student protest in decades.
Walkout organizers say that close to 3,000 schools have indicated they will take part and that many more are planning events and memorials independently. On the social media pages for the Women’s March Youth Empower, the group helping to coordinate Wednesday’s walkouts, more than 150,000 students have indicated interest in taking part, said organizer Fatima Younis, a student at Frederick Community College in Maryland. The walkout, she said, is a message that political leaders need to hear.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/03/14/students-have-just-had-enough-walkouts-planned-across-the-nation-one-month-after-florida-shooting/
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nytimes.com
National School Walkout: Live Updates
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/14/us/school-walkout.html
Alan Blinder and Julie Turkewitz
10-13 minutes
Thousands of students, emboldened by a growing protest movement over gun violence, stood up in their classrooms on Wednesday and walked out of their schools in a nationwide demonstration, one month after a gunman killed 17 people at a high school in Florida.
The 17-minute protests unfolding at hundreds of schools are intended to pressure Congress to approve gun control legislation after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and come 10 days before major protests in Washington and elsewhere.
Here’s what to know:
• The first large wave of students began to leave their classrooms at 10 a.m. Eastern time. Across the country, others are scheduled to walk out at 10 a.m. in their local time zones.
• The demonstrations were not limited to school property. In Washington, sign-clutching students gathered outside the White House and on Capitol Hill.
• School administrators have been grappling with how to respond. Some districts welcomed or even tacitly encouraged walkouts, while others threatened disciplinary action against students who participate.
• It is unlikely that officials in Washington will quickly heed the demands of the students. Although Florida last week raised the minimum age to purchase a firearm to 21 and extended the waiting period to three days, President Trump on Monday abandoned his pledge to seek national-level reforms that the National Rifle Association opposed.
