[ [link removed] ]March For Our LivesMarch For Our Lives



Hi John, it’s
Jackie.

Today, I’m coming to you as the new Executive Director of March For Our
Lives. Despite everything going on in our world today, I’m hopeful when I
think about mobilizing young people to address gun violence and I’ll tell
you why. 

My commitment to this movement is personal. I am a survivor of the mass
shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

When we started March For Our Lives, we had no idea it would turn into the
powerful youth-led movement it is today. But we knew one thing for sure:
we wouldn’t sit back while our leaders did nothing to address gun
violence. Too many lives depended on it.

We started as a megaphone for the movement, as a tool for young people to
be able to channel their anger and fear of experiencing gun violence in
their schools, on their streets, at movie theaters, and anywhere else they
go. 

The first march was really an accountability tool to call out gun
manufacturers, the broader gun lobby, politicians — to tell them that we
call BS on the way that our systems currently operate.

Now, we have a president who is governing for the gun industry, NOT for
gun safety. 

We are in another urgent moment and I’m proud to stand before you as a
young woman and as a survivor at the helm of this incredible organization,
ready to take this challenge head-on. 

America’s kids need March For Our Lives and we’re not going anywhere. This
is a moment to evolve and to center those who have experienced exactly
what we’re fighting against. 

Just as I’ve grown and changed so has the organization. I know both March
For Our Lives and myself will rise to this moment and this challenge. 

I had the honor of expanding more on my own connection to this movement
and the next chapter of March For Our Lives in my op-ed for Her Campus.
[ [link removed] ]You can read the full-op-ed below, but before you go can you donate
$20.25 to help support March For Our Lives as we continue to
fight for a future free from gun violence?



[ [link removed] ]Donate $20.25 ››



Thank you for all that you do. We couldn’t do this without you,

Jackie 💙
Executive Director and Co-founder, March For Our Lives

When people talk about mass shootings, they focus on the noise: the
sirens, the chaos, the names scrolling across the screen in news coverage.
But they rarely talk about the stillness that comes after. The ringing
that won’t stop. The way time splits. How your body moves through one
version of reality while your mind stays stuck in another.

After February 14th, 2018 — the day that 17 of my classmates and teachers
at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida were gunned
down on campus — I went back to school. I sat in classrooms where others
used to sit. Tried to write essays while flinching at the sound of
slamming doors. Felt my heart race walking the halls, passing armed
officers stationed outside our classrooms. Studied for exams while
wondering if the grief would ever let my brain work again. I wasn’t
physically injured, but my nervous system was completely rewired. More
than the fear, what I remember is the confusion of trying to move forward
in a world that had just stolen 17 futures. That’s the part people don’t
see. Survivors carry the weight of what didn’t happen: lives not lived,
causes not championed, futures cut short.

In the months after the shooting, I co-founded March For Our Lives with my
classmates. We were grieving, but we were also determined to act. In the
years that followed, I carried that purpose with me as I pursued my
education — first at Harvard for my undergraduate degree, then at Oxford
for my master’s — always thinking about the people who never got the
chance to do the same. Although I moved forward, I couldn’t just move on.
I met classmates who had fled war zones, grown up under authoritarian
rule, or spent their lives fighting for the right to exist. People who had
seen the worst of the world. And still, nearly all of them asked me the
same question: How does a country like the U.S. let this happen to its
children? The idea that school shootings were a normal part of life in
America left them stunned.

Their questions stayed with me. In every room I entered, the focus was on
the future — policy students debating what comes next, classmates
imagining the change they’d help create. And I kept thinking: My peers
should be here too. I couldn’t just study injustice from a distance. I had
to return and fight the one that shaped me. That’s what brought me back —
to not just organize, but help lead March For Our Lives into its next
chapter as Executive Director.

Today, March For Our Lives is fighting for something that should be
simple: a world where students worry about midterms, not mass shootings.
Where classrooms are for learning, not lockdowns. We’re demanding what
should have existed long ago: universal background checks, a ban on
assault weapons, and a higher minimum age to buy a gun. And we’re calling
out every part of the system that enables this crisis — from the gun
industry and the lawmakers who shield it to the corporations that quietly
profit while claiming neutrality.

But policy alone won’t save us. What we’re building is power: a generation
of young people organizing not just to vote, but to lead. To rewrite the
rules. To say, clearly and collectively, that we are not expendable. Gun
violence is now the leading cause of death for children and teens in the
U.S. Not cancer, not car accidents. Guns. And too many lawmakers respond
by making it easier to carry a weapon than to cast a ballot. But we refuse
to accept that this is normal. We shouldn’t have to choose between getting
an education and staying alive.

The gun lobby has money, lobbyists, and political influence. But it
doesn’t have us. We’ve grown up with bloodstained headlines and
bulletproof whiteboards, and we’ve had enough. You don’t need a title or a
perfect plan to be part of this fight. You just have to choose not to look
away.

Every day, I fight so that one less student has to text “I love you” from
under a desk. So that walking into school doesn’t feel like walking into a
trap. So that grief doesn’t become a language we all know by heart. We
still have a say in what kind of future we live in — a future where safety
is a right, not a privilege. Where children grow up instead of being
buried. Where my story doesn’t have to be so familiar.

If you refuse to accept the status quo, here’s how you can fight back:
Vote like your life depends on it, because for millions of us, it does —
know where your candidates stand. Speak up in classrooms, at dinner
tables, on social media, in student government. Make the people in power
feel the weight of our voices. Hold your representatives accountable. Ask
them, in public or in private, why they won’t protect kids over campaign
contributions.

I’ll never know who my 17 peers and teachers would have become. I think
about that all the time — what books they would’ve written, who they
would’ve loved, what kind of change they might have made. That ache
doesn’t go away. But I do know this: Somewhere, a student is alive because
we didn’t give up. Because we turned grief into movement. Because we kept
going. Those 17 futures were stolen. But ours is still here — and it’s
still worth fighting for.

 

We Can’t Afford to Sit Back — Join the Movement Fund 💌💙

Gun violence is relentless. Our response has to be just as relentless.

The Movement Fund is how we fight back — together, every month.
Recurring donations power our organizing, rapid response, youth
training, and everything it takes to win.

[ [link removed] ]One-time donations help. Monthly support builds the future.

[ [link removed] ]Join the Movement Fund — start a recurring gift today ››





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