Savannah Students Walkout to Remember Parkland and Protest Gun Violence

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Savannah Arts Academy students during National School Walk-out. / GPB

Hundreds of students at Savannah Arts Academy participated in today’s National School Walkout. The event was to protest gun violence and remember the seventeen students shot and killed one month ago at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.

At first the Savannah-Chatham County School Board supported the student-organized events but later left each school to determine how to handle it on their own. Savannah Arts Academy’s principal, Gif Lockley, offered use of the school’s auditorium but students had other plans.

Just before 10 o’clock this morning they left campus and walked across the street to Tiedeman Park.

As students streamed in, J'Kira Hall and her friends who recently turned 18 registered to vote at a table manned by retired teacher volunteers.

Some seniors, like Abraham Lebos, said the demonstration was worth the risk of possible punishment, “Not that it would make me happy but if I were to get into trouble for this, I think that this is the right thing to get in trouble for.”

Hundreds of community members gathered in the park to support  the Walkout. Retired teacher Carol Towbin-Greenberg was among those wearing red in solidarity with the students.

“What I really see here is an amazing teaching moment in American democracy,” she said. “These are young people who, themselves, have told us – the adults – we’re not doing enough to protect them, and they’re just not gonna stand it anymore.”

Student organizer Alivia Rukmana directed students to fill into the central plaza of the park that’s lined with palm trees. Following a moment of silence and the reading of the names of Parkland victims, several students shared personal stories about ties to victims of the Parkland shooting and the 2015 Charleston church shootings.

Other student speakers urged their peers to use their cell phones to text state legislators about gun legislation.  Riya Patel reminded them that news coverage of the latest school shooting will stop, “But you can’t forget what happened, because the moment we forget, it happens again. I urge you all to never forget.”

Many students said today is just the beginning of their fight for school safety.

“It doesn’t end here,” Patel said as she and fellow student organizer Rukmana talked with their mothers who came to support them. “We hope that this is a first step to a movement of change, not just in Savannah but in the whole country. And we really hope that this can spark some conversation in our community about what’s happening and we’re so excited for the future and we’re not going to stop here.”

Others, like student organizer and speaker Nautia Smalls, say this has changed her career path. In addition to studying filmmaking, she now plans to pursue politics. “Our generation is the future and we can do this,” Smalls says about the problem of gun violence in America. “It just requires persistence. We are here, we are not going anywhere. They need to listen.”

Students from around the country will gather in Washington DC on March 24 for a national rally to protest gun violence in schools.

Click here to see more images from the event on the GPB Savannah Facebook page.