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David Geitgey Sierralupe
The youth-led March for Our Lives to end gun violence brought thousands out in Eugene on Saturday, March 24.
At allied marches in Washington D.C. and across the nation, there was a call to action to end not just mass shootings in schools like the one at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17, but also the gun violence that kills students who don’t get as much media and social media attention.
At the Washington DC, March, Mother Jones reports that “Naomi Wadler, an 11-year-old girl from Alexandria, Virginia, thrilled hundreds of thousands when she spoke out for ‘the African-American girls who don’t make the front page of every national newspaper.'”
The Lane County area experienced a mass shooting of its own almost 20 years ago when two were killed and 25 injured at Springfield’s Thurston High School. The numbers of mass shootings, including those at schools, have continued, and youth speakers at the rally said schools no longer feel safe.
As The Register-Guard reported, “’I shouldn’t have to wake up and go to school wondering if I’m going to make it back home later that day,’ Churchill High School senior Tamara Hernandez-Cruz told the crowd.”
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Photo by David Geitgey Sierralupe
Emma Gonzalez, a Parkland shooting survivor spoke volumes by not speaking when she took the stage in DC and let the silence fill the time it took for the shooter to kill 17 people.
Local NPR affiliate KLCC estimates about 5,000 people turned out for Eugene’s march.
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Photo by David Geitgey Sierralupe
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David Geitgey Sierralupe
A Note From the Publisher
Dear Readers,
The last two years have been some of the hardest in Eugene Weekly’s 43 years. There were moments when keeping the paper alive felt uncertain. And yet, here we are — still publishing, still investigating, still showing up every week.
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Thank you for standing with us!
Publisher
Eugene Weekly
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