During National School Walkout, local students deliver loud message: ‘We demand change’
Students burst through the doors of Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet High School and spilled down the steps by the hundreds, cheering, chanting and pumping their fists in the brisk morning air. It was an eruption. As they wound their way from their campus in downtown Nashville to the State Capitol, the students’ energy evoked a pep rally or the first day of summer break. But their cause was deadly serious. They were among the hundreds of thousands of students nationwide who walked out of class Wednesday to mark the one-month anniversary of the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Students from every corner of Tennessee participated in different ways that reflected the complexity of the debate in this deeply conservative state.
For many, the event was part of a broad push for stricter gun laws. But others said the day was not about guns.
Hume-Fogg students were laser-focused on gun violence. Several of them said they marched out of school in a desperate attempt to convince lawmakers to ban semiautomatic riffles, institute universal background checks or pursue other gun control measures.
From the steps of the Capitol, they chanted together: “We demand change.”
Students like Payton Renfroe saw themselves in the Parkland victims.
“They were students who were going to school, trying to get educated,” she said. “It could have happened in D.C. or in Michigan. Or it could have happened in Nashville.”
Renfroe, 18, said she had never participated in this kind of protest before. But the memories of fellow students gunned down in class drove her forward.
“We’re the lucky ones,” she said. “We’re the ones who are still out here and can still advocate for that change. “This is our responsibility now.” High schools were particularly active during the walkout, but eighth-grade student Faith Miniard and her friends led the charge at I.T. Creswell Middle Prep School of the Arts.
For Miniard, her school’s participation was intensely personal, and tied to broader concerns about youth violence that have vexed Nashville city officials and devastated families in recent years.
“Here in Nashville, I have friends who are teenagers that were shot to death because of gun violence,” Miniard said. “Even though I am not able to vote, we have a voice, and with things like this, I feel like adults will listen.”
Reaction in some of the state’s biggest school districts — including Shelby and Knox counties — was more muted because students were on spring break. But college students in Memphis and Knoxville participated in walkouts of their own.
At the University of Memphis, students marched through campus chanting “What do we want? Gun control! When do we want it? Now!”
State Rep. Craig Fitzhugh, a Democratic candidate for governor who represents Ripley, greeted the students’ message with optimism, drawing a parallel with the college students of the 1960s who led protests that ultimately ended segregation at Nashville lunch counters.
“This is going to make a difference: Folks like this,” Fitzhugh said while watching the protests at the Capitol. “I was there in the ‘60s. This is what it was.”
But in Tennessee, it could be an almost impossible task to convince most state lawmakers to take up any kind of gun control. Legislators have taken several steps in recent years to expand access to guns, and Democratic efforts to stiffen gun regulations have fizzled.
Many Tennesseans share a critical view of gun control. Multiple schools focused their walkout-related activities on prayer and remembrance, not guns.
At Peabody High School in Trenton, where about 100 students were involved, each of five student speakers said the event was “not about guns.” They talked about being more caring and cordial to each other in school.
Instead of participating in the walkout, Gallatin High School’s student council planned a memorial service at the same time to honor those killed in school shootings.
Clarksville Christian School staged a “walk-in” rather than a “walk-out,” according to a social media post issued Wednesday. Older students, faculty and staff spent 17 minutes in prayer — one minute for each of the victims.
In Williamson County, hundreds of students participated in low-key walkouts across several schools. At Brentwood High School, a speaker recited a poem written by a Parkland survivor.
At Centennial High School, some students wore bright orange T-Shirts saying “Walkout for Stoneman Douglas High School.” Student counter-protesters held up a Confederate flag.
Nearly all of the protests were peaceful, but a Nashville schools spokeswoman said fights broke out at Antioch High School. No one was injured.
Renfroe, the Hume-Fogg senior, said she hoped the protests across the state were the opening salvo of a sustained effort in Tennessee.
Before the Hume-Fogg students left the Capitol to return to classes, they heard from activist Tarana Burke, founder of the #MeToo movement.
Burke had delivered a speech on campus and then walked with the students to the Capitol, where she urged them to continue looking for ways to force change.
“Make sure you keep fighting every day,” she said. “It doesn’t have to look like this every day but it has to be something. Don’t let this be the end. Do y’all promise?”
In an interview, Renfroe said she and her friends would not forget Burke’s words. “This is just the beginning.”
Natalie Allison, Jason Gonzales, Matt Lakin, Nancy DeGennaro, Chris Gadd, Rachel Ohm, Melanie Balakit, Emily West, Jennifer Pignolet, Brandon Shields, Trenee’ Truex, Nicole Young, Stephanie Ingersoll and Jeffrey Jenkins contributed to this report.