The March for the 2nd Amendment: This time, the Children know what's going on.
Last Saturday (24th March 2018) I attended the gun violence march, #MarchForOurLives, in downtown Los Angeles. Due to my satisfaction with the photo series from the Women's March a couple months ago, I tried t duplicate my course of action at this march.
At both the marches for #WhyIMarch (Women's march) and #MarchForOurLives (Gun Violence March) the subject I focused on were the children. This time while I was shooting I noticed a change in them.
In my last post documenting the Women's March I mainly focused on the parents who dragged their children into the moving mass with them. At #MarchForOurLives, the people were centred around the children themselves. The baton was passed down and the children were now the activist and not just adolescents blindly following their parents.
Empowering The Children
The children at the march were each taught that their voices had power, they had the ability to move mountains and that nobody could force anything they didn't like on them. This, I observed, is one of the main pieces of heritage that is passed down from generation to generation.
What I loved about this march is that there were clear signs of the children being empowered and consciously acting with a dream. The children had a dream. It wasn't their parents' dream or the dreams of their teachers, it was their dreams, they owned it.
Children Empowered
The streets were filled with the shouts, chants and cheers, initiated by the youth. By far, the students in the crowds stood out the most. They were
young, bold and filled with fresh passion. How? Because a dream for a better America was instilled in them.
A specific quote that I was struck by from the speeches given by the student activists was made by Cameron Kasky, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who said "Welcome to the revolution, We are the change .… Represent us or get out."
There is a shift, our children are growing up, they are learning. Soon they will begin evolving, creating their own ideals of a perfect America, organising their own rallies. For the parents who raised these troupers, well done, you have successfully passed down your dream, of the greatest America.
