About 2,000 Bellingham students walked out of their classrooms and marched to show support for victims of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting and to send a message to lawmakers.
The students demanded an end to school violence.
“What do we want? School safety. When do we want it? Now!” the crowd chanted.
A couple of the signs at the rally outside City Hall said, “Is my school next?” and “We want to make it to graduation.”
“I’m terrified,” said Lyn Kitchen, 13, a student at Whatcom Middle School.
“All the time, yes. It’s constantly on my mind. And it’s a fear. It shouldn’t have to be, but it is,” said Zack Lyne, 11, another Whatcom Middle School student. The students also marched downtown.
"It's showing that we're not students who are just going to lay down and take it," Lyne said.
Quinn Carson, a senior at Squalicum High School, said she lived with depression for 10 years before receiving a diagnosis and treatment.
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“I thought about killing myself every damn day of my life,” Carson said to the crowd.
“I know that if I had access to something like a firearm, while I was in that mental state that I was in for so long, I wouldn’t be here. And I hate to think about it, but other people might not be here as well,” she said in an interview after the march.
Some students talked about restrictions on assault weapons.
“When James Madison wrote the Bill of Rights, he had a musket in mind, not an AR-15,” said another student who spoke.
We also saw a few students who came to express their support of gun rights.
“We’re out here saying, 'Don't ban all guns,'” said Michael McCluskey, a Squalicum High senior.
But the message of the day was heard loud and clear.
The student who helped launch the walkout and rally in Bellingham said she and her mother were just yards away from the Burlington Mall shooter who killed five people.
“I felt weak. I felt powerless,” said Maggie Davis-Bower, a junior at Squalicum High, speaking to the crowd.
Now, after Parkland, “I felt the surge of empowerment that many Americans have felt after this shooting in particular. This same feeling, it’s here with us today. I can feel it in the air,” she said.
“The death toll is so high, and nothing is being done, so we as young people, who didn’t elect the people in office, are having to speak out and say, 'We don’t want this world that we’re living in,'” Carson said.
School principals voiced their support, saying in part, "We are proud that student representatives from all four high schools are collaborating together and taking action for something they believe in. This is a great example of the Bellingham Promise’s One Schoolhouse Approach in action. It’s also a good lesson in democracy and the right to have a voice in government. Students feeling passion and advocacy about an issue can be a powerful learning experience.”
Cox Media Group
