On a crisp Wednesday morning, one month after the Parkland massacre, students across the country walked out of class to protest congressional inaction on gun reform. Clutching homemade signs and cellphones, they streamed out of their classrooms at 10 a.m., their young faces fixed with sober expressions as they filled the parking lots and football fields and sundry streets of more than 3,000 schools across the country.
In New York City, central locations like Columbus Circle, Brooklyn Borough Hall, and Battery Park became convergence points for hundreds of students. They stopped traffic in East Harlem, rallied outside the state Supreme Court building in Queens, and marched to the Department of Education headquarters in the Bronx.
Students in Bed-Stuy and elsewhere linked arms for a moment of silence that lasted for seventeen minutes, one for each life lost at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High. In Chelsea, a chorus of young voices carried for blocks, their irate chants alternating between “We want change” and “Fuck the NRA.” At one point, a teenage girl in midtown stood on a bench and shouted, “Not my president!” in the direction of the Trump International Hotel, only to be shushed by a teacher.
Within an hour, the streets began to clear, and the students hurried back to class, still reeling from the excitement of their first collective action. “The most amazing part,” remarked Jake Harmen, a senior at Trevor Day School, “was finding students who felt exactly the same way we did, and being able to act on that.”
Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics during Wednesday’s walkout
Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics student protestor Iman Faris
Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics Robert Awuah
Preparing protest signs before Wednesday’s student walkout
Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics students head into the streets at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
High school students from the Manhattan Center of Science and Mathematics hold a walkout against gun violence and mass shootings.
Trevor Day School students link arms during a moment of silence commemorating the seventeen students killed by a gunman last month at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
After walking out of classes, Trevor Day School students observed seventeen minutes of silence — one for each fatal victim in the Parkland shooting — on 95th Street Wednesday morning.
A student affixes a homemade sign to the wall before an organizing rally Wednesday evening at the 15th Street Meetinghouse in Manhattan.
Trevor Day School students after walking out of class at 10 a.m. Wednesday in protest of school shootings, gun violence, and congress’s failure to pass gun control laws
Trevor Day School ninth grader Celeste Honey chants while surrounded by her classmates on Fifth Avenue Wednesday.
Students from Trevor Day School livestreamed their walkout protest, which made its way from the Upper East Side to Columbus Circle and later through Central Park.
Trevor Day School senior Mary Grace McMillan, center, chants demands for gun control legislation with her classmates near Central Park during a walkout protest Wednesday.
Sara Dorzback, a senior at Trevor Day School, marches with classmates along 59th Street.
Along with a packed room of students, parents, and educators, New York Harbor School senior Julia Schles observes a moment of silence Wednesday night in memory of the seventeen students killed during the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting.
NYC iSchool senior Maya Gmach registers to vote at an organizing rally Wednesday evening at the 15th Street Meetinghouse in Manhattan. “This is the first time a mass amount of students have taken charge of their own lives,” she said. “I’m going to vote for reps who value me and want change.”
New York students gathered in Manhattan video chat with Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school students Ryan Deitsch and Delaney Tarr. Both Deitsch and Tarr helped found the new youth gun control advocacy group Never Again MSD and are organizing the upcoming March for Our Lives protest.