Volunteers there also registered attendees to vote to spread the energy of the march to the polls.
All photos by Samanta Helou.
Thousands of people descended on the U.S. capital on March 24, 2018, to advocate for tighter gun control laws and protest against the gun violence that ravages the nation.
Toddlers, teenagers, and senior citizens alike waved signs energetically. Volunteers on site also registered some attendees to vote, hoping that the energy of the march would continue at the polls. March for Our Lives featured powerful speeches from Yolanda Renee King, Martin Luther King Jr.’s granddaughter, student activists from Chicago and Los Angeles, and survivors from the February 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Activist and Parkland student Emma Gonzalez took a pointed 6 minutes and 20 seconds in giving her speech, the same amount of time it took Nikolas Cruz to murder 17 people at her high school. Throughout the day, the echoes of her and others’ powerful words were met with encouraging chants, claps, and tears from the protesters on the ground. But the most poignant moment came when thousands of people raised their hands to form peace signs during Gonzalez’s stretching moment of silence.
As the day wrapped up, vendors and performers filled the empty space while some protesters made the walk up Pennsylvania Avenue to leave their posters at the footsteps of Trump Hotel.
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