Duke, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Elon and N.C. State came together to organize a Rally for Our Lives at UNC in support of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and gun control on Thursday.
Duke sophomore Taylor Lipsich was one of the organizers. Lipsich grew up in South Florida about 15 minutes from Parkland—which meant the Feb. 14 shooting "hit home" for her. Lipsich ended her speech at the rally with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi.
“You may never know what results will come from your actions, but if you do nothing there will be no result," she said.
Josh Romero, a UNC first-year, was one of Lipsich's classmates in high school and an organizer of the rally. He called out the NRA for influencing politicians and defended students' desire for safe classrooms.
"We are here for an education, not target practice... [Politicians], we have had enough and we're not going away, so cut your ties with the NRA," he said.
Another of the rally’s organizers, first-year Frankie Pucci from Elon University, highlighted the privilege and intersectionality of the #NeverAgain movement.
She called out her own privilege as a straight, white female from an affluent town in South Florida who goes to a private university. However, Pucci noted that there is nothing wrong with being privileged as long as you benefit people with less privilege.
"I think it’s important that we have to recognize the privilege of this movement as well... Guns are an everyday threat for millions of Americans," she said.
Pucci then commented on how gun violence disproportionately affects some groups.
"Black people are 2.5 times more likely to be shot dead by police. Enough is enough," she said. "An American woman is shot and killed by her partner every 16 hours. Enough is enough. America’s gun homicide rate is more than 25 times the average of other high income countries. Enough is enough. Guns have been a problem in America long before Feb. 14, 2018.”
Mayor of Chapel Hill Pam Hemminger was also in attendance at the rally. She reminded the students that they have a lot of elected officials present who stand with them.
"There are politicians out there who care, who have the same values you're expressing here," she said. "On behalf of the town council and the national mayor’s organization, we applaud you, we support you, we are here with you… You are out there with your passion, putting faces to this, you are speaking up, you are showing up, you are standing up, you are making a difference. Keep going.”
Stoneman Douglas junior Sarah Chadwick, who helped lead the March for Our Lives in Washington, on March 24, is one of the main figures of the #NeverAgain movement.
She told the crowd gathered at UNC on Thursday that she has been speaking out about the tragedy that happened at her school and in her community since Valentine's Day. Chadwick also focused in on the NRA.
"The NRA has been attacking my classmates and I about speaking out about the epidemic of gun violence in the United States. How American of them," she said. "The NRA controls politicians like puppets, using them as puppets. How American of them.”
Standing before the crowd with a pendant of Florida hanging around her neck—a heart cut-out marking the location of Parkland—Stoneman Douglas survivor Jaclyn Corin addressed the gathered crowd.
She told them that she and her classmates are fighting to make sure future children do not have to grow up in a world where they are scared to walk around a corner because they might get shot.
"My childhood and innocence were stripped away in a matter of six minutes and 20 seconds, but I don’t want to focus on me because you already know that story. I want to focus on you. On your family on your friends on your roommates, on your neighbors," Corin said. "You don’t deserve this. Your town doesn’t deserve what Parkland is going through."
She said that although the fight has been going on since long before Parkland students entered it, what is different about now is that the survivors are the ones speaking up.
"We are the survivors from an affluent community opening up the conversation to people whose voices have been deemed unimportant for far too long," she said.
Corin explained that members of their movement are not trying to repeal the Second Amendment, but instead are looking for regulation toward the "betterment of society."
The chair with Carmen Schentrup's name was occupied only by a bouquet of flowers. Her older brother Robert Schentrup, a first-year at the University of Central Florida, told the crowd about his sister. Carmen was one of the 17 students who died in the Parkland shooting.
“My parents would sometimes let Carmen babysit me, her older brother,” he said. “She was funny, she was strong, she was driven."
In February, the last time they spoke, Carmen had told her older brother that she had been accepted into the University of Florida's honors program, and last week they found out she had been accepted into the University of Washington. The day after her death, her family found out she was a National Merit Finalist. Her goal was to become a medical scientist, her older brother told the crowd at UNC.
“She had so much going for her and an entire life planned ahead,” he said. “I’m standing here now telling her story of what could have been instead of what’s going to be.”
Schentrup said he shouldn't have to live in fear that his other younger sister may not make it home from school one day.
"It's too late for my sister... As a nation, we need to come together during these midterm elections and hold our officials accountable," he said. "We need to let them know that their inaction will no longer stand, and we need to let them know that they are either with us or against us, because come November, when we all head to the polls, we will vote them out!"
Ali Guttenberg, a first-year student at UNC, lost her cousin Jaime in the Parkland shooting.
“I will not stop fighting so the world will never forget Jaime and all the other victims of senseless gun violence,” Guttenberg said. “Jaime—beautiful, intelligent, graceful and kind—died from a single bullet in her back from an AR-15."
The UNC rally concluded with a vigil honoring the lives lost in the Parkland shooting, the speakers' lost loved ones and all others lost to gun violence.
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