Students, teachers and parents from different parts of metro Atlanta walked out of their classes at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, March 15, and gathered in front of the capitol building to rally for stricter gun legislation, and one Kennesaw State student spoke.
Thousands of students from schools and universities in Georgia showed up for the walkout in Atlanta holding signs. Kennesaw State sophomore Katie Jordan said she was amazed by how manykids and parents alike attended the rally.
“That was just impressive just how many kids and how many parents were so supportive of that because those parents don’t want to be the next one to hear that their kid’s school got shot up,” Jordan said.
Organizers spoke to churches in the area and got them involved in the rally as well. Starting at 10 a.m., several Atlanta churches rang their bells once every minute for 17 minutes — once for each of the 17 individuals who died in the Parkland, Florida, shooting.
Jordan spoke about the gun control debate and students’ feelings toward not only the most recent shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland but also about other mass school shootings that have occurred in the U.S. in the past.
“If you look back, every American generation kind of has those defining moments for the young people in it,” Jordan said. “For our grandparents, it was World War II. For some of our older parents, it was Vietnam and Nixon. It was those things that really made them stand up and say, ‘Are we going to fight for this or fight against it?’ That kind of scars a generation’s psyche in a way.
“And so for us, I think that’s really been living through code red drills and hearing about kids our age dying in schools and not knowing if it’s going to be us next,” Jordan continued.
Several other students from high schools and middle schools in the Atlanta area also spoke during the walkout, and after the rally was over, a group of students and parents went into the capitol building to speak with state legislators about what they can do to help put restrictions on firearm purchases.
Jordan said she has spoken to her representatives about the issue before, and she recently had the opportunity to speak with Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., during an over-the-phone town hall meeting where she asked how legislatorswill work to make Georgia’s schools safer.
“I’m really glad they’re doing more than just rallying, that they are taking it to the representatives,” Jordan said.
Clare Schexnyder, a Decatur mother, organized the rally after she started the National Stop School Shootings NOW movement on Facebook. She said she started the page on Feb. 15, the day after the Parkland shooting.
Schexnyder said the Facebook group was originally private, but she made it public after a few days because many of the parents at her child’s school were interested in becoming part of the discussion. She said the group had more than a thousand members in just a few days.
She said the group had originally planned a national walkout for students and parents on March 2, but that they moved the date to March 14 to align with a walkout planned by Women’s March Youth EMPOWER.
Stop School Shootings NOW organized another protest in Atlanta for Saturday, Mach 24, called the “March for Our Lives.” Schexnyder is calling on students, teachers, parents and gun owners to come and rally with the group. Schexnyder said they are expecting approximately 50,000 people to participate in the march.
