Taking stock of a youth movement’s gains, losses

I found this to be a really helpful piece, particularly in light of what very often feels like the slow pace of change in our social policies and in our practices, as a whole.  I myself find that public policy requires an enormous amount of patience coupled with continuing hard work.  I do like the view expressed herein that the pursuit of social change is an investment in our communities and in our future.  

What merits mention is that the very process of pursuing positive social change is actually never without an equally positive impact of, in this case, educating our communities on the combined issues of gun violence, policy, politics, and the role of individual, organizational, and collective agency and power in a democracy.  

So individually, we may not harvest the victory we seek even if collectively, we ultimately do.  After all, the seeds of change that these youth activists represent are the essential building blocks to victory.  It matters, for example, that the students successfully framed gun-control legislation as a "school safety issue," rather than a Second Amendment one.  To decouple these is an advance.

Social movements matter.  They always do.  Things will change.  They already are.  

In the meantime, we educate and sow peace and healing in our troubled world.

Sí se puede!  Yes we can!

-Angela Valenzuela
#SurvivorsEmpowered #NotOneMore

Demonstrators, many of them high school students, fill Pennsylvania Avenue during the March for Our Lives rally in support of gun control in Washington last March.

—Alex Brandon/AP

Taking stock of a youth movement’s 

gains, losses

By Stephen Sawchuk

February 12, 2019

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For Philly native Rachel Steinig, a core March for Our Lives activist, returning to the University of Pennsylvania for her sophomore year highlighted a stark contrast between her life on the protest frontlines and the orderly campus. There just weren't many supports there for student organizing or activism, said Steinig.

So in January, nine months after student walkouts rippled through American schools, the 19-year-old and a handful of her classmates decided to fill the void themselves, and launched the UPenn chapter of March for Our Lives.

In a few weeks, the chapter had amassed an email list of some 250 students, visited the Philadelphia office of Sen. Pat Toomey to lobby for a federal proposal to close gun background-check loopholes, and contacted long-established Philadelphia gun-violence groups, to ask how it can help.

As the anniversary of the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School arrives, the efforts of groups like this one represent one of several possible answers to this question: What is the future of the extraordinary youth activism #neveragain unleashed in 2018?

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