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Keeping up the momentum after last month’s walkouts, students across the Bay Area joined their peers coast-to-coast on Friday to protest gun violence on the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting.
At Friday’s National School Walkout, many students left class in the morning and paused for 13 seconds of silence for each of the victims in the Columbine shooting in Littleton, Colorado — the third such demonstration since the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting in February.
They then marched, rallied, and held voter registration drives at schools in the East Bay and South Bay as they lobbied for stricter gun measures.
In San Jose, nearly 200 high school students walked out of class, chanting “NRA has got to go” and carrying signs that read “Books not Bullets” as they marched to City Hall where students from other schools like Evergreen Valley, Oak Grove, and Downtown College Preparatory joined in the rally.
“We’ve grown up as the active shooter generation,” said Mashia Mazumder, 17, a senior at Notre Dame High. “I haven’t been a victim of gun violence but it could be me that’s next. This is a movement to change that.”
Her classmate, Zaynab At-Taras, 16, echoed her sentiments.
“We’re here today because we want to be heard. We want people to know that we are not going to wait until we have to vote to make a difference. We’re going to be out here today, we’re going to be out here tomorrow fighting for gun control.”
Mayor Sam Liccardo greeted the students, acknowledging the growing youth activist movement.
“What we see here in San Jose and certainly throughout the country are that voices are rising — a new voice,” Liccardo said. “A new spirit is rising and you are part of that, and it is so critically important to think about the future.”
For the most part, the number of walkouts — at least in the Bay Area — was significantly smaller than last month’s, but the message was the same in Dublin, Los Gatos and Peninsula schools.
Students “should be able to go to school without someone shooting at us,” said Maia Buggiano, a junior at Los Gatos High, where about 100 students walked out of class.
Another Los Gatos student said he joined the walkout because he previously attended Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where the Valentine’s Day shooting left 17 dead.
“I was doing a drama performance when a friend from Marjory Stoneman texted and said he was in a closet hiding from the gunman,” said Felipe Sambugaro, a junior. “My ex-boyfriend got out OK, but another friend was shot in the knee, I think.”
He remembers leaving his Los Gatos class at the time because he was crying so hard. “I grew up with a lot of those kids,” he said.
At Peninsula School, a private school in Menlo Park, all fourth- through eighth-graders — roughly 100 students — walked out to busy Willow Road, carrying signs and chanting, said Melanie Carvalho, a seventh-grade teacher at the school.
“They’re really grappling with the solutions and the larger political issues, as well as this very personal climate of fear that they’re living in as children,” she said. “It was really nice for them to have a forum to voice that, because too often we ask kids to suppress those feelings.”
At Dublin High School where about 80 students left class late morning, student organizer Evelyn Morehead said that overall she was happy with the turnout.
“People were really enthusiastic, inspired and everyone there was passionate,” she said.
Staff reporters Kevin Kelly and Angela Ruggiero contributed to this story.