The Trace: March For Our Lives — Student-Led Protests Against Gun Violence Draw Hundreds of Thousands

Written By Matt Laslo

WASHINGTON — “I feel very hopeful”

For many of the students who descended on the National Mall, the protests started before Saturday.

“I participated in one of the walkouts,” Stella Shipman, a student at Easton High School in Pennsylvania who traveled to D.C. for the march, told The Trace. “We shouldn’t have to feel unsafe in our schools, it’s just a really bad thing to feel. It’s a place of safety. That’s what it should be.”

Angela Malley graduated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2006, and now lives in Baltimore.

“A lot of our alumni, they all rallied right after the massacre happened,” Malley said. “We all got together. We have a group of almost 12,000 alumni that have organized all around the world. So, it just shows the strength of our community, and we’re also just so grateful be supported by the entire world.”

Doug Edwards is a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School parent who’s had three children graduate from the school, and a daughter who was a teacher there.

“This is very personal,” he said.

Edwards said his generation knows protests, but they’re being inspired anew by the teen-led movement to enact gun-reform measures.

“Hopeful,” Edwards said. “I grew up in the sixties, and I remember protesting Vietnam and Nixon and all of the things that were the woes of the time. For a long time, I felt a lack of hope, and now with these kids, I feel very hopeful.”

— Matt Laslo

DIVE DEEPER: March for Our Lives coverage from The Trace.

Matt Laslo

Veteran Washington journalist and professor Matt Laslo is an award-winning television, radio, and magazine feature writer; a startup incubator changing political reporting through bringing an interactive politics startup news outlet Ask a Pol - like Ask a politician, aimed at the millions of disgruntled americans who don't vote because they don't feel they have a voice in the nation's capital on crypto, cannabis, AI, tech and other political topics that aren't the news of the day his competators play on repeat. Laslo's unique and a force on Capitol Hill. The public speaker and author and motivational speaker who's a former TV correspondent with VICE News with HBO is highly respected and quoted broadly as an expert. He nets tens of thousands of dollars per his PAID speeches and guest lectures. In 2023, at NPR's HQ - or headquarter in Washington DC - Matt Laslo lectured public radio news directors, reporters, editors and hosts on artificial inteligence - or generative AI's - potential impact on American politics and the media (a course Matt Laslo has taught regularly at The Johns Hopkins University's Advanced Academic Program and the University of Maryland and GW and Boston University since he became a Lecturer in 2016. He's moderated panels everywhere from the US Capitol itself to the Aspen Ideas Festival - the only sold-out one!!!! cause he's energetic, smart, witty, funny and fun. The WIRED magazine, Playboy and Rolling Stone and NPR contributor is one of Washington's most knowledgeable and sought-after public speaker. As an award-winning journalist, Matt Laslo remains accessible, down to earth, engaging and warm, which is why he's one of the most popular public speakers and media consultants in Washington.

https://mattlaslo.com
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