On Saturday, demonstrators across the country took to the streets to demand immediate solutions to end gun violence and school shootings following the rampage last month at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in which 17 people were killed.
- Parkland students planned the march with help from organizations including Planned Parenthood and Everytown for Gun Safety. Organizers said the goal was to “end this epidemic of mass school shootings.”
- Photos: Protesters from around the world marched — they were planned in nearly 840 locations worldwide.
- In L.A., the main event kicked off Saturday morning in Pershing Square, with a rally and speaker program organized by students. Thousands then marched to Grand Park.
- Afternoon marches in Orange County and San Francisco featured speakers including Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, billionaire activist Tom Steyer and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Six of the most powerful young speakers at the March for Our Lives
It was the Parkland student who silently stood on stage for several minutes. The 11-year-old’s eloquent call for awareness about violence against black women. The South Los Angeles teen who asked the crowd to chant her dead brother’s name.
The most powerful moments from Saturday’s March for Our Lives in Washington came from student activists. Here are their speeches.
Emma Gonzalez
Tears rolled down Emma Gonzalez’s face as she stood in silence.
Emma, 18, one of the most recognizable faces leading the student movement for gun control, was not alone. Tears could be seen on many in the crowd.
She had begun timing six minutes and 20 seconds — the time it took a gunman to kill 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where she is a student.
“Fight for your lives before it’s someone else’s job,” Gonzalez said before ending her speech.
Focus turns to midterm elections as marchers across the state demand stricter gun laws
As thousands of people participated in March for Our Lives rallies in Orange County, Los Angeles, San Francisco and across the state, one message appeared to be propelling many participants forward: “Today we march. Tomorrow we vote.”
At marches across the country, “Vote them out!” was a frequent refrain and signs condemning the National Rifle Assn. and Republican lawmakers were plentiful.
In downtown Los Angeles, Secretary of State Alex Padilla set up booths to register voters and pre-register teens who have not yet turned 18 under a new state law that prepares them to vote.
Organizers in Santa Ana said at least two dozen young people were helping register marchers to vote there, many of them holding clipboards and pens as they made their way through the crowd. Among them were organizers with NextGen America, a group started by California billionaire and activist Tom Steyer, who has already put aside $1 million in a nationwide youth voter registration effort.
“As much as we love your voice, we want to make sure your voice is counted on Nov. 6,” Steyer told the crowd in Santa Ana. He plans to spend $30 million helping Democrats flip the House of Representatives this year, $3.5 million of it organizing young people in California.
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who has touted her support of an assault weapons ban in her tough reelection campaign, urged rallygoers outside San Francisco City Hall to extend their activism into November.
“There is a bill in the Judiciary Committee to ban assault weapons with 30 co-sponsors,” the California Democrat told them. “The problem is the gun industry. They will go out and they will support mightily people in other states that will refuse to do this. Here’s what I’m asking you to do…. Will you march? Will you register? Will you see that people vote and see that you vote and your friends vote for those that would rid this country of guns?” The crowd yelled back loudly, “Yeah!”
In Irvine and San Diego, Democratic candidates for Congress used Saturday’s marches as an opportunity to remain visible in several crowded, competitive races that could prove crucial to Democrats’ chances this fall. Track the California races that could flip the House here.
Video: A bird’s-eye view of marchers in downtown L.A.
Speaking to O.C. marchers, Gavin Newsom touts his own record on gun control
Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has never been a darling of the National Rifle Assn. He accused the organization of trying to incite violence through a recruiting video last year and was the force behind 2016’s Proposition 63, a voter-approved gun control initiative that requires background checks for ammunition, among other restrictions.
Newsom, who is running for governor, highlighted his record Saturday afternoon as he spoke to protesters at the March for Our Lives in Santa Ana.
“We changed the trajectory of the debate, not just in this state but all across the rest of the country,” Newsom said of the state’s laws. “Gun control saves lives!”
Newsom touted Proposition 63, which he proposed and campaigned for, as California’s answer to the NRA’s sway over federal gun policy. “Instead of booing, instead of complaining, you decided to step up and step in, and we passed Proposition 63,” he told the crowd, which cheered loudly and waved signs decrying gun violence. “You said, ‘Enough!’ You said, ‘We will be the example.’ ”
Proposition 63 also banned ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds and made it a crime not to report lost or stolen guns. Newsom’s efforts in the realm of gun control recently earned him endorsements from former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was injured in a 2011 shooting in Tucson, and her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly.
Demonstrators worldwide gathered in solidarity with American youth
Overnight, as Americans were still sleeping or preparing to participate in Saturday’s events, protesters worldwide rallied against gun violence in solidarity with the March for Our Lives events.
An estimated 800-plus marches were scheduled in the United States and across the globe, according to the March for Our Lives website. In Tokyo, protesters held signs with the victims’ names from mass shootings such as those at Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook Elementary School and others.
“We have to take on these weapons manufacturers. They are anti-life,” Parliament member Julie Anne Genter said at a protest in Auckland, New Zealand.
In Paris, protesters gathered near the Eiffel Tower with signs that read “Protect Kids Not Guns!” and “Ban Assault Weapons Now!” Chants of “Hey hey, NRA, how many kids were killed today?” roared from the crowd.
Protesters in Sydney, Australia, chanted the names of every victim from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. After the Port Arthur mass shooting in 1996 left 35 people dead, the country’s government banned semiautomatic and military-style weapons. The country hasn’t experienced a mass shooting since then.
Thousands gather in Santa Ana as afternoon march gets underway
Thousands gathered in Santa Ana’s Centennial Regional Park on Saturday afternoon for what was expected to be one of the largest March for Our Lives events in Orange County.
At a rally demanding an end to gun violence, the crowd chanted “Never again!” and “Vote them out!”
The crowd was full of young faces. Andrew Gutierrez, 15, said he’s been anxious about going to school since the Parkland shooting. “I want to feel safe going to school,” the Anaheim resident said. “I shouldn’t hesitate if I want to go to school.”
Micah McCathern, a second-grader who lives in Placentia, made his own sign with red and black markers Saturday morning. “There has been way too many deaths from gun violence,” he said. “We just need to stop it now before any more happen.”
Sara Ajifu, 32, of Garden Grove, said she was at the event to show solidarity with young people protesting the nation’s gun laws and to show them they’re not alone.
After listening to speakers who included Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and billionaire activist Tom Steyer, the crowd began to march along the road that encircles the park.
L.A. marchers carry hand-drawn tributes to Florida victims
As thousands packed in to Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles, 17 marchers held 17 hand-drawn portraits, one for each of the victims killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., last month. The drawings, which featured pops of orange and gold against mostly black-and-white images, were created by Grace Pekrul, 16, a student at Oak Park Independent School in Ventura County. The first names of each of the victims were written in neat cursive across the bottom of each image.
Denver marches for gun control
The march in Denver began with thousands of people raising their signs in solidarity with protesters around the country and world.
The three-hour march started at Civic Center Park downtown. Speakers included Tom Masuer, the father of Daniel Masuer, who was killed in the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student Maddie King.
Pro-gun demonstrators sound a contrary note at L.A. march
About a dozen pro-gun demonstrators rallied in front of Los Angeles police headquarters around noon Saturday, facing off with some of the marchers advocating for stricter gun control measures.
The counterprotesters waved American flags and held signs reading, “Ban Jihad Not Guns” and “Guns will ensure our freedom.” Most marchers walked by on Spring Street without paying attention, but a few dozen gathered around, the two factions separated by yellow caution tape, a line of officers, a line of police bicycles and a line of volunteers who said they were affiliated with the march and wore orange vests and black shirts that said, “We can end gun violence.”
“How long have you been pro-mass shooter?” one man shouted across the barriers.
“All lives matter!” a pro-gun protester shouted back from the other side. “My best friend is black!” pronounced another.
Jarime Uzziel, 43, said he was “standing against additional gun control.” He also wants teachers to be trained and able to carry firearms, he said.
Natali Valle, 20, stood on the other side and shook her head, pulling her friend into a hug. They had stopped to see if the counterprotesters had any valid points, and quickly decided the answer was no.
“When people argue back and forth, there’s no communication happening,” said Valle, a community college student at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut. “This division is … what’s causing America to fall apart.”
Bassad Pesci, 47, of Orange County said he worries about the future of his four children, ages 3 to 13, if their right to own guns is restricted.
Pesci said the solution to school shootings is more armed security. The Parkland, Fla., shooting would have been prevented if the school officer had done his job, he said.
“Making schools gun-free zones does not save lives,” he said. “People with with criminal intentions are not going to respect laws such as gun-free zones.”
‘I found my voice’: Teen gets involved after Las Vegas massacre
Sara Ross, 16, felt a bit helpless after the mass shooting that left 58 dead at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival in Las Vegas.
The Coronado High School Student said she knew a classmate whose dad was killed in the Oct. 1 massacre that injured more than 700 people.
“Our community here in Las Vegas was rocked by it,” she said.
Then the shooting in Parkland, Fla., happened. She saw kids her own age getting in front of microphones speaking their minds — speaking clearly and forcefully about wanting gun reform. She was inspired. Ross got involved with the March for Our Lives movement and began organizing the event on social media. She was slotted to introduce a speaker.
“They said it was going to be in front of 10,000 people, and that made me a little nervous,” Ross said.
But on Saturday, when she stepped on to the podium and saw thousands of supporters waving signs and shaking their fists, she said she felt empowered. “I found my voice,” she said.
Ross said she is “a little upset” she won’t be able to vote in November. But she had a message for everyone who can. “Think of me and the kids my age who can’t make their voice heard at the ballots — to remember this is a movement for all.”
Frequent target at the marches: Trump
L.A. teenager Edna Chavez remembers her brother, a victim of gun violence
Edna Chavez, a South Los Angeles resident, spoke to the march in Washington, recalling the day her brother was killed.
She remembers seeing the “sunset going down on South Central” and hearing the “pops, thinking they’re fireworks.”
“Ricardo was his name,” Chavez said, asking the crowd to say his name. “Ricardo! Ricardo!” the crowd chanted in unison.
“I lost more than my brother that day. I lost my hero,” Chavez said.
Earlier in her speech, Chavez talked about the normalcy of gun violence in her neighborhood. “I’ve learned to duck from bullets before I learned how to read,” she said.
A future doctor, she’s seen enough gunshot wounds: ‘We have to end the cycle’
Stephanie Goddard, a Tulane University medical student, says she’s seen wounds from all sorts of guns — 9-millimeter pistols, .22-caliber rifles, 12-gauge shotguns.
“I’ve seen it all and that’s why I’m here … for change,” Goddard, 27, said. “This city has too many shootings, too many deaths .… It’s terribly sad.”
Goddard, wearing green medical scrubs, was among thousands who marched on the streets of New Orleans on a muggy day.
“It’s not normal to see so many people getting killed by firearms,” she said. “This is a public health issue.”
Of 157 homicides in New Orleans last year, about 85% of the victims died of gunshot wounds, according to data compiled by the Times-Picayune newspaper. The year before, New Orleans police responded to nearly 10 shooting incidents a week — a number that, per capita, was greater than Chicago’s.
“There’s a lot that needs to be done to make this city safer for all residents and among the first steps is getting guns off the street,” Goddard, who is in her fourth year of medical school, said.
“We have to end the cycle” she said.
Trump steers clear of gun protests near Mar-a-Lago
President Trump took the scenic route after spending Saturday at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Fla., ensuring he didn’t pass any demonstrators calling for stronger gun laws as part of the nationwide March for Our Lives.
Scores of people had lined the motorcade’s usual path, which has been well-traveled by the president as he shuttles between his Mar-a-Lago estate and the Trump International Golf Club during weekend visits here. They held signs blasting the National Rifle Assn. and supporting a ban on assault weapons.
But returning to Mar-a-Lago from the club on Saturday afternoon, Trump’s motorcade took a longer route, crossing a different bridge into Palm Beach and then driving down Ocean Boulevard. There were striking views of the blue water and palatial estates, but no protesters could be spotted.
The White House did not respond to a question about the reason for the detour.
Emma Gonzalez leads remarkable moment of silence at Washington march
Tears rolled down Emma Gonzalez’s face as she stood in silence.
Gonzalez had begun timing six minutes and 20 seconds — the time it took a gunman to kill 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where she is a student. For more than four of those minutes, she stopped speaking as a crowd of hundreds of thousands looked on.
“Never again!” chants rang as Gonzalez stood at the podium. “Everyone in the Douglas community was forever altered,” Gonzalez said earlier in her speech, naming each of the students killed in the mass shooting.
After saying the victims’ names, Gonzalez looked at the crowd in silence honoring their memory.
Gonzalez was one of several Stoneman Douglas students who spoke at the Washington march, who received huge roars of applause from the crowd.
If a speaker ever stuttered or stopped, the crowd would offer encouraging words.
“Fight for your lives before it’s someone else’s job,” Gonzalez said before ending her speech.
Attendees chanted Gonzalez’ name as she walked off stage.
A survivor says the mass shooting in Las Vegas should have been stopped
Stephanie Dobyns, a survivor of the mass shooting last fall in Las Vegas, spoke at the March for Our Lives rally Saturday at Las Vegas City Hall. She described how she went to buy a bulletproof vest from a store in Texas, and explained to the salesclerk that she wanted it to protect her while she spoke at the gun-control march.
“Do you know what he said?” Dobyns asked.
“What did he say?” a lone voice yelled from the crowd. She paused again.
“He said he didn’t want his vest being used by anyone participating in that rally.”
The chorus of boos was deafening. And it didn’t stop.
Dobyns told the crowd that the Las Vegas massacre, where a gunman killed 58 people from his perch on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino, shouldn’t have happened because the alarming volume of guns Stephen Paddock purchased over the course of the year leading up to the Oct. 1 attack should have raised red flags.
Dobyns then listed other mass shootings: Columbine, Orlando, Aurora, San Bernardino, Sandy Hook.
“I could go on, but I shouldn’t be able to,” she said.
‘We are the change .... Represent us or get out’
“Welcome to the revolution,” Cameron Kasky, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, told the crowd in Washington. “We are the change .… Represent us or get out.”
Kasky was among a number of students from the school in Parkland, Fla., to speak to the hundreds of thousands of marchers who gathered on Pennsylvania Avenue near the base of Capitol Hill on Saturday to protest U.S. gun laws with chants of “Vote them out!”
He and other Stoneman Douglas students said their goal is a new ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. The AR-15, the semiautomatic rifle used to kill 17 people at the high school, is one of the most popular guns on the market and has been used in a series of mass shootings.
Neither President Trump nor the Republican-controlled Congress supports those gun-control proposals. Trump and lawmakers left Washington on Friday, as marchers converged from all over the nation.
“This is a movement,” said Delaney Tarr, another Stoneman Douglas student, and it will not stop until Congress passes laws that “keep weapons of war out of the hands of civilians.”
If no assault weapons ban is passed, “we will vote them out,” she said.
The crowd responded with a more chants of “Vote them out!”
‘To not come home again, like, ever — it’s overwhelming’
Sheva Gross is mad.
Her sign at the L.A. march was double-sided: “This Mama is mad!” read one side. “I’m so mad I can’t even think of a slogan!” read the other.
The UCLA child development professor marched down Broadway with her daughters, Talia and Flora, calling for more gun control.
There are “way more lockdown drills at school” recently, said Talia, 8. They frighten her.
“To not come home again, like, ever — it’s overwhelming,” said Flora, 11.
Flora hugged Sheva tightly as her mother broke into tears describing her classes with future teachers and child welfare workers at UCLA .
“I had to teach 15 minutes after San Bernardino and an hour after Parkland,” and the fear in her students’ eyes was evident, she said. “They grew up with this, and they’re terrified.”
‘I am here today to represent the African American girls whose stories don’t make the front page,’ says 11-year-old Naomi Wadler
Naomi Wadler has worked to raise awareness of the African American girls and women who have been victims of gun violence but overlooked in the national conversation.
“I am here today to acknowledge and represent the African American girls whose stories don’t make the front page of every national newspaper,” said Naomi, 11, at the March for Our Lives rally in Washington, D.C.
Naomi helped organize a walkout at George Mason Elementary School in Alexandria, Va., on March 14 in protest of gun violence.
Like protests throughout the country that day, George Mason had a 17-minute moment of silence for the victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting one month earlier. Naomi added an extra minute to honor Courtlin Arrington, an African American teenager fatally shot the week before at an Alabama high school.
“I am here to say that everyone should value those girls too,” Naomi said at the Washington march.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s granddaughter: ‘I have a dream that enough is enough’
Yolanda King, the granddaughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, surprised the Washington, D.C., crowd with an appearance.
“I have a dream that enough is enough, and that this should be a gun-free world,” King said to the crowd.
King was joined onstage by Jaclyn Corin, junior class president at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
At the end of her speech, King asked the crowd to repeat the following words: “Spread the word! Have you heard? All across the nation, we are going to be a great generation!”
In New Orleans, it’s a march — and a party, of course
In New Orleans, the march quickly became festive.
As supporters of March for Our Lives made their way toward City Hall, the group turned down Decatur Street and walked for several blocks through the French Quarter.
“I’m down for the cause,” said a man giving high fives to marchers as he gripped a plastic cup overflowing with beer. “I’d be marching, but I’m partying.”
“Let me buy you a beer, Miss Lady,” he said to a woman marching. She declined.
Ashley Fisher, a resident of New Orleans, brought her 4-year-old son, Aiden, to the march.
“This is for him .… I don’t want him to get shot when he starts going to school,” Fisher said.
Kaye Fagan wore a festive Mardi Gras hat as she walked along Decatur. She also wore a badge with a message: “NRA don’t kill our children.”
“This country is finally waking up and it’s because of our children,” she said. “They started this movement and people are starting to listen.”
Crowds swell on streets of D.C.
‘The NRA has blood on its hands’: Signs from March for Our Lives rally in Los Angeles
Signs are an integral part of any protest, and the March for Our Lives is no different.
Some placards in Los Angeles focused on the National Rifle Assn. Near 5th and Spring streets, a group of students held a long sign that read, “NRA has blood on its hands,” marked with red handprints. They weren’t the only ones to carry that sign.
Giselle Jimenez, 17, of Alexander Hamilton High School, held a sign in downtown L.A. that read, “Silly me, I didn’t know that not wanting kids to be slaughtered by assault rifles was being political.”
She called for stricter gun control and for adults to take students like her seriously.
“It’s just frustrating seeing how our lives are not taken seriously,” she said. “A school shooting could happen anywhere. The next victims could be me, my sister, any one of my friends.”
Paul McCartney marches in New York in memory of John Lennon
Paul McCartney attended the March for Our Lives in New York as a way to honor his former bandmate and friend John Lennon.
McCartney, wearing a “We Can End Gun Violence” T-shirt, told CNN, “One of my best friends was killed by gun violence right around here, so it’s important to me.”
Lennon was shot and killed Dec. 8, 1980, outside his New York apartment by Mark David Chapman.
In New Orleans, students target House Majority Whip Steve Scalise
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) was a victim of gun violence, but students here have a message for him: Shame on you.
On Saturday, New Orleans high school students held signs confronting the congressman ahead of the local March for Our Lives rally.
“He has an A-rating from the NRA and will never be an advocate for tougher gun laws,” Louise Olivier, 16, a junior at Benjamin Franklin High School, said as she held a sign assailing the Republican. “He almost died from a gunshot wound and still refuses to do anything.”
In June, Scalise, who represents Louisiana’s 1st Congressional District, which spans areas outside New Orleans, was among those injured when a gunman opened fire on an early-morning baseball practice attended by Republican members of Congress. Even after the shooting, Scalise has voiced staunch opposition to stricter gun laws.
Olivia Keefe, 17, a classmate of Louise’s, said gun-control legislation should not be a partisan issue.
“This is not about Democrats or Republicans at all. … This is about common sense,” she said. “We need laws so a guy doesn’t have the chance to go on to a baseball field and start shooting.”
Early Saturday, several dozen people gathered here in Washington Square Park, where they will march to City Hall to call for stricter gun laws.
Parents of slain Virginia reporter attend Washington, D.C., march
Parents of a slain Virginia TV news reporter attended the March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C., on Saturday afternoon.
Andy and Barbara Parker carried a poster of their daughter, WDBJ reporter Alison Parker. In August 2015, Parker and cameraman Adam Ward were killed on live TV by a former colleague at a shopping center in Virginia.
“I’ve been fighting this battle for 2½ years … in this club that no one wants to join,” Andy said.
With the rise of the Parkland, Fla., teenagers’ movement, “it feels like we have an army of activists and motivated kids who I think will help us carry the day.”
Video: The art of protest signs
We caught up with some protesters at Self-Help Graphics in Boyle Heights while they created signs to carry in today’s March for Our Lives in downtown Los Angeles.
Protesters in Britain show solidarity on gun control
Hundreds of people gathered in Britain on Saturday to show solidarity with the March for Our Lives protesters across the world.
In Edinburgh, Scotland, relatives of the victims of the 1996 Dunblane school shooting read letters addressing gun violence and supporting the Parkland, Fla., teenagers.
“I hope that they see our message and realize that we’re holding hands with them across the ocean,” said Ali Ross, whose sister, Joanne, was killed in the Dunblane shooting.
Marchers held a “die-in” outside of the U.S. Embassy in London, with signs reading “Gun Control Now” and “Never Again” on their chests.
Follow L.A. Times journalists covering #MarchforOurLives around the country
Times journalists are covering marches for gun control across the U.S. on Saturday, including those in Los Angeles, Orange County, Florida, Las Vegas and Washington, D.C. Follow their #MarchforOurLives updates here.
Shot on the streets of Chicago as teens, they’re heading to D.C. to protest gun violence
Like many of the young people who are heading to Washington, D.C., for Saturday’s protest against gun violence, Dantrell Blake and Deshon Hannah are concerned about deadly school shootings.
But Blake, 21, and Hannah, 20, also have very personal reasons for attending.
Both were shot as teens on the streets of Chicago; Blake still has a bullet lodged in his left leg because doctors determined that removing it would damage bone. His cousin Hannah was hit with 30 buckshot pellets, 24 of which remain in his body.
Here’s what you need to know about Saturday’s March For Our Lives in Washington
Thousands of students across Maryland are boarding trains and buses and hopping in cars headed to Washington this morning to join what is expected to be a crowd of 500,000 at a March For Our Lives rally sparked by the recent school shootings.
The school safety and anti-gun violence movement has been led by the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, where a shooting last month left 17 dead at the school.
The Maryland students are marching not just in honor of those who died at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, but also for the two students who were shot Tuesday by a gunman at Great Mills High School in St. Mary’s County.
On the road for gun control, Parkland students bring their stories to L.A. schools
One day in February may have saved Mia Freeman’s life. A second day changed it forever.
On Feb. 2, Mia’s fourth-period class, which had been meeting in her high school’s freshman building, was moved back to its original classroom space on another part of the campus.
On Feb. 14, a former student brought a semiautomatic rifle into the freshman building and started firing, killing 17 people.
On eve of gun control march, Trump announces proposed ban on ‘bump stocks’
The Trump administration on Friday announced a new regulation that would outlaw “bump stocks,” the mechanical device used by the Las Vegas shooter to make his rifles fire like more lethal automatic weapons.
President Trump announced the regulation in a Twitter message a day before the so-called March for Our Lives, which was organized by young people after the mass slayings at a Parkland, Fla., high school. Marches are planned for Washington and hundreds of other locales nationwide to call for stricter gun control measures.
Congress has held hearings since the Parkland shootings on Feb. 14, but Republican leaders have shown little interest in passing new laws.
Her son was killed in New Orleans, one of hundreds gunned down. Here’s why she’s marching
There are so many names, dozens and dozens, that the display runs out of room with 2012 and resumes inside the church with more panels listing yet more names of people killed in gun violence in New Orleans. Among the victims — mostly black, mostly young, mostly male — is Deidra Smoot-Hall’s baby boy:
6/21/15 Kenneth Hall Jr. 27 Shot.
On the local nightly news, her son’s death was a blip, another name on the seemingly never-ending list of people killed with a firearm.
“I know he’s not coming back,” Smoot-Hall said. “But I refuse to allow him to become just another number. He was a victim of violence. Brutal gun violence.”
Yara Shahidi and Amy Schumer join March for Our Lives in Los Angeles
Actresses Yara Shahidi, Amy Schumer, Connie Britton, Olivia Wilde and Skai Jackson will speak at the March for Our Lives Los Angeles rally this weekend, organizers announced Wednesday.
The women will join singer Charlie Puth and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti in downtown L.A. on Saturday for the inaugural demonstration to honor the 17 lives lost in the Parkland, Fla., high school shooting last month and demand immediate action on gun-violence prevention.
Garth Brooks, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ben Platt support March for Our Lives with new songs
Country star Garth Brooks has joined Broadway luminaries Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ben Platt in sharing a new song ahead of the March for Our Lives anti-gun rally set for Saturday in Washington, D.C., and across the country.
Brooks debuted the unreleased song, which he didn’t name, in a new feature called Primetime during his recurring “Inside Studio G” session Monday night on Facebook.
Everything you need to know about the March for Our Lives in L.A. this Saturday
This Saturday, students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., have coordinated a series of nationwide marches to call for action to end gun violence and mass shootings in schools.
Events are planned in nearly 840 locations worldwide, including Los Angeles. The hub of march activity will be in Washington, D.C.
Video: 4 students. 4 school shootings. Now they’re taking action
We spoke with four students from schools affected by shootings in the last four years. They shared their experiences walking out of classes in protest earlier this month and told us why they are pushing for change in the wake of the massacre in Parkland, Fla.
These are the Southern California schools and organizations participating in Saturday’s March for Our Lives
Organizers posted a list of participants in the march. They include:
Schools:
Alexander Hamilton High School
Arcadia High School
Azusa High School
Benjamin Franklin Senior High School
Calabasas High School Freshman
California State University Fullerton
California State University Long Beach
California State University Los Angeles
California State University Northridge
CHAMPS Charter High School
Citrus College
East Los Angeles College
Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy
Fullerton University
Geffen Academy at UCLA
George Washington University Online High School
Greenwood High School Indiana
Hart High School
Harvard Westlake
Herbert Hoover High School
iLead North Hollywood
John A. Rowland High School
John Burroughs High school
La Cañada High School
Los Angeles City College
Los Angeles Valley College
Loyola Marymount University
Marlborough School
Maywood Academy High School
Millikan High School
Mira Costa High
Mt. San Antonio College
Notre Dame Academy
Oakwood Secondary School
Ocean View High School
Pasadena City College
Pitzer College
San Diego State University
San Dimas High School
Santa Ana College
Santa Monica College
Santa Monica High School
Santiago Canyon College
Saugus High School
School of Rock Woodland Hills
Scripps College
Sierra Vista Junior High
Studio School
University California, Riverside
University of California, Davis
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, San Diego
University of La Verne
University of Southern California
Valencia High School
Warren High School
Partner organizations:
Students March
March and Rally Los Angeles
March for Our Lives California
Indivisible Los Angeles
The Schools Los Angeles Students Deserve
Drain the NRA
Women Against Gun Violence
League of Women Voters
West Valley Resistance
California Freedom Coalition
Eastside LA Moms Demand
Democratic Socialist of America – Los Angeles Chapter
Bernie Sanders Brigade
National Lawyers Guild
USC Young Democratic Socialist
Fusion Academy
Right To Assemble Club Marlborough School
Shooting Survivors: Support & Resources
In the L.A. area, many options for joining the March for Our Lives on Saturday
Josie Hahn, who attends Polytechnic High in Long Beach, is not a survivor of a school shooting. Neither is Sofia Lizardi of Venice High or Edna Chavez of Manual Arts. But all three seniors are part of a movement that found full voice after a 19-year-old wielding a semiautomatic rifle killed 17 at a high school in Parkland, Fla., last month.
On Saturday, these students and hundreds of thousands of others are expected to take part in at least 838 marches and other official and unofficial events worldwide in what organizers have called the March for Our Lives.
The Saturday event, spearheaded by Parkland survivors, is a follow-up to the school walkouts on March 14.
Sensing their moment, Florida students balance school and activism planning the March For Our Lives
A self-confessed “secret huge nerd,” Jaclyn Corin admits she is freaking out on the inside as she tries to balance political activism with schoolwork.
The 17-year-old junior class president has six essays to write for her advanced-placement language and composition class. But after a gunman rampaged through her high school, killing 14 students and three staff members, she is mostly focused on Saturday’s March For Our Lives.
“It’s very hard to juggle,” Jaclyn said one evening last week as she slipped into a booth at Panera with fellow activists David Hogg and Sarah Chadwick and sipped a strawberry banana smoothie.