‘We just want to feel safe in our own schools’: Local students vow #NeverAgain

On March 24, 2018, anywhere between 200,000 and 800,000, depending on your source for numbers, marched on Washington. There were celebrities and unknowns, rich and poor, of all ages and races, marching in one of the largest youth-led protests since Vietnam, but they were all marching for one reason: to raise awareness against gun violence, specifically in schools, and marchers hoped to send a message to legislators that more needs to be done to prevent school shootings.

The primary march was in Washington D.C., but there were other satellite marches across the country and even overseas in places like London, Copenhagen, Madrid, Tokyo, Brisbane, Rome and Paris.

Not to be left out, Washington County was represented, either in marchers in Washington or serving as witnesses to the marches elsewhere.
 

‘Make Toys, Not Guns’

Kady Schocke, 12, was with her family in New York City during the march there. She didn’t take part in a march, but saw a group of marchers who did.

“We were walking around and saw kids from the march on the street,” she said. “My aunt had been talking to me about it and I’ve heard about it before, but this got me more interested in it.”

The marchers gave Schocke a t-shirt that read, “Make Toys, Not Guns.”

“It was kind of cool to see kids come forward and want to be heard,” said Schocke.

She said she would consider taking part in a march one day if she was able to.
 

Standing up to fear

Three local teenagers took part in the march in Washington.

“It wasn’t a long trip,” said Ryland Sparkman, a sophomore at Floyd Central High School who lives in Washington County. “We left Friday night, got there for the march and left as soon as it ended and got home around 2 in the morning on Sunday.”

“It felt really long, though,” said Amanda Porter, a junior at West Washington who were also on the trip.

They and others were part of a group that went to Washington on buses chartered by Mid-Kentucky Presbytery. The church provided buses for several youth groups to go and New York Avenue Presbyterian Church hosted the group when they got there. The cost for the trip was $10, plus tips for the bus drivers.

Sparkman said he especially wanted to go to the Washington march, rather than one closer to the area, such as the march in Louisville, because it would “have done more for the cause I was hoping to achieve.”

“There were a lot of people there and I knew there would a lot of support there,” he said. “I didn’t know how the people in Indianapolis would be. I didn’t know if there would be a lot of counter-protestors, but in DC, being that city, I felt like it would be more effective, especially being in front of all the government buildings. The march went right in front of the Capitol building.”

Sparkman said one of the biggest reasons he marched was because of the fear his classmates felt, along with students across the country, after the shooting in Parkland, Florida, that claimed 17 lives.

“I went to make sure students aren’t scared to go to school,” he said. “That’s the main thing I’ve been pushing. Just recently, we had a fire drill at our school and I know there were people who were scared that it was going to be just like what happened on February 14 in Parkland, that somebody pulled a fire alarm and they would hurt us when we went outside. It’s just — I don’t want that to be what school is defined by, that we’re all scared and have to do monthly lockdown drills, which my school does. We do a lockdown drill every month to make sure we’re prepared for something like that because it happens so often that it’s becoming almost regular, like we don’t realize it.”

If school shootings are defined as any shooting that takes place on the grounds of a school or university campus, there have been nearly 20 in the first three full months of 2018. Some have killed only one or two people and some, like Parkland and Benton, Kentucky, killed and injured many more.

Porter said she went after hearing Sparkman talk about it.

“I wanted to go, though,” she said. “It’s such a cool cause. It’s not cool that people get shot, of course, but it’s something I really believe in. I remember being in kindergarten and having lockdown drills and being so scared. I know what to do better in a lockdown drill than a fire or tornado drill. That’s kind of awful!”

Salem High School’s Rachel Fisher, a sophomore, said marching in Washington was a way of standing up to school shootings.

“I was putting my foot down and saying enough is enough to all these mass shootings that are happening all across our country,” she said. “As a student, I shouldn’t feel the fear going to school and being the vicim of a mass school shooting.”
 

Empowered for change

Sparkman said the energy and atmosphere at the march was “absolutely incredible.”

“I think just being there with all those people who felt the same as you, it just felt like a community,” he said. “It felt like all of us were connected because we were all marching toward the same cause. There were people behind us who would make jokes and we would laugh like we knew them. It was really nice … It felt like all of us were one and moving toward the same cause and that’s nothing I’ve really felt before.”

“Everyone was so nice,” said Porter. “I asked a girl if I could take a picture of her sign because it was really cool and she was pretty and she was like, ‘Yes! Of course!’ She was so happy that I wanted to take a picture of her sign and it was so great!”

Fisher said people started marching before the event was scheduled to start.

“We started marching about 2 hours before the march actually happened,” she said. “It was still crowded. There were so many people walking and holding signs and chanting and I just … I felt empowered when I was there. Once the march actually started and I was listening to students and people in general, like Emma González, hearing these heartrending and inspiring speeches made me feel more powerful and that I can make a change and contribute to making a change.”

Sparkman said he didn’t realize how many people were there until after they left.

“I thought we were about half-way back, but when you look at the pictures, we were pretty far up,” he said.

Porter said one of the most memorable moments for her was hearing Yolanda King, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s granddaughter, speak.

“When she spoke, it was a real moment for me,” she said. “I was yelling. She wanted us to cheer with her! I was so happy!”
Fisher agreed.

“Definitely hearing Yolanda King speak just blew my mind,” she said. “To hear someone so young speaking for what she believes in and going back to Emma González … when she held the moment of silence, you saw tears rolling down her cheeks and you knew in that moment, this was something that needed to change.”

Sparkman, who is involved heavily with the performing arts at Floyd Central, said seeing Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ben Platt perform during the march.

“It doesn’t really have anything to do with how I feel, seeing Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ben Platt perform was super cool,” he said. “I’m a big theater person and they’re theater people so it was really cool. Seeing Emma González was moment I’ll never forget.”

“She’s an amazing speaker,” said Parker.

“During that moment of silence, something I don’t think was gotten across by TV and reporting … was how uncomfortable it was,” he said. “It seemed like we were all really into it and cheering, but we were all cheering because we didn’t know what else to do. It was really uncomfortable and I think she did that on purpose … She was trying to make us uncomfortable because it’s an uncomfortable topic and people would be uncomfortable during that time where they don’t know what’s going on.”

“I never knew how long six minutes and 20 seconds was,” said Porter. “It’s so fast.”

“It doesn’t seem like much, but when you’re uncomfortable, it seems a lot longer,” said Sparkman. “It goes on forever.”

González’s moment of silence lasted six minutes and 20 seconds, the duration of the shooting rampage in Parkland.
 

In the face of opposition

Sparkman, Porter and Fisher said they’ve received positive feedback from people their own age, but overall, reactions have been mixed.

“I’ve been posting about it quite a bit and people texted me and congratulated me and said ‘Thank you for standing up for what you believe in. We need kids like you to go to these things and step up.’ My parents are super supportive. Her mom is supportive of it,” Sparkman said, gesturing to Porter. “There’s also the flip-side of that, where people were telling me how stupid I was and that the whole cause was stupid and it was worthless, what we did. That’s wasn’t good. I don’t think what we did was worthless. Even if not much changes, this, I think, scared a lot of lawmakers because they saw how many people showed up in support of this.”

Porter said the positive response has outweighed the negative.

“I posted stuff on my Snapchat story and I posted in a group chat with my friends and they were all caps lock congratulating me and excited,” she said. “I got a lot of texts from people wanting to know where I was and what I was doing. There was so much support from people my age.”

Fisher said she’s noticed the adults in the area have vocally disapproved of her voicing any differing political viewpoints in the past and this issue is no different.

“As I’ve grown up, the political beliefs I’ve had and shared with friends, I’ve gotten snarky remarks from teachers and other adults,” she said. “On my Washington DC trip in 8th grade, Ryland and I bought Bernie t-shirts and everyone else bought Trump t-shirts.”

“It was the year of the election,” said Sparkman.

“The day we came back to school, we decided to wear our Bernie t-shirts and everyone else decided to wear their Trump t-shirts and it was crazy,” Fisher said.

Fisher said she saw the comments on a post made by The Salem Leader on Facebook searching for students who had gone to the march.

“I was reading the comments and people were talking about us, but they didn’t know who we were, so they couldn’t say anything specific,” she said. “After I posted pictures from the march on Facebook, I had adults comment underneath my posts with political memes and trying to poke at me.”
 

Just the beginning

Sparkman said being part of the march really lit a fire in him to be more active in causes he supports, such as reducing gun violence.

“Afterward, I sat silent and [Porter] asked, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ and I was just like, ‘We have to continue fighting for this.’ This can’t be just a one-time thing where all of us get together and fight for this because if nothing happens, we can’t just give up. This is something I think most of us truly believe in and we didn’t just come here for the performers or the speakers or whatever. We truly believe in what we’re fighting for, so we can’t just give it up. I was really fired up. I wanted to do more. I wanted to go to another march or do something else. I was ready. After hearing everybody speak and seeing the videos and seeing how supportive everyone was toward this cause, I just wanted to do something else. I just need to keep showing my support for this cause.”

Sparkman added that the march wasn’t entirely about gun control.

“That’s something that needs to be said because a lot of people are saying the march was stupid because we’re trying to take away our own rights,” he said. “We’re not trying to take away anybody’s guns. That’s not at all what we’re trying to do. This was purely a call to action, telling the government to do something so this doesn’t happen again. The slogan for the march was ‘Never Again.’ We just want to feel safe in our own schools. We want to feel safe when we go places. We don’t want to be constantly worried that someone will come and cause harm to us … I know a lot of people who were at the march and support this say that common sense gun laws are the best option for this. Personally, I believe that, but that’s not what the march was for. If there’s something better that will stop this school shooting epidemic, then I want that to happen. That’s what this march was all about — calling on the government to do something. If they can find something better than common sense gun laws or doing something with guns — if they don’t have to bring guns into it at all, I want to see that … Lawmakers in Washington don’t seem to be doing anything. They’re just sitting silent, hoping we eventually forget and stop calling on them.”

Porter said she’s not uncomfortable with people owning guns.

“My dad has guns and he goes hunting and a lot of my family does that; we’re rednecks,” she said. “I just don’t want the wrong people having guns. My dad doesn’t need an assault rifle to hunt. If you need an assault rifle to hunt, maybe you should reconsider hunting.”

Sparkman agreed. He added he doesn’t believe civilians have a Second Amendment right to military-style firearms.

“There once was a ban on assault rifles,” he said. “That [expired] in 2004. Were the people claiming to have a right to military assault rifles born after that? We were alive during a ban on military weapons. The courts decided it was not our right to have a military assault rifle then. It’s not your right to own a military assault weapon.”

“You can still uphold the Second Amendment and pass regulations to ensure people’s safety,” said Fisher. “Gun regulations have happened before and we hope for them to happen again. The Second Amendment protects the ownership of guns for the collective security and military duty, not an individual’s right to own a military assault rifle.”

Sparkman said he had something important to say to those who were against the march and against the group who went.

“This was not the end of this movement,” he said. “This is just the beginning of a revolution.”