Clooneys to be part of anti-gun march
George and Amal Clooney are so moved by the activism of teen survivors of the Stoneman Douglas High School massacre that they have vowed to both attend the students’ planned anti-gun violence demonstration in Washington D.C., and pledged $500,000 to help fund the event.
With the pledge, actor George Clooney and international human rights attorney Amal Clooney join other celebrities in showing support for the March for Our Lives rally and cause.
On March 24, students plan “to take to the streets” of Washington, D.C., “to demand that their lives and safety become a priority and that we end gun violence and mass shootings in our schools today.”
The march was announced Sunday by five teenagers who survived the school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
“Amal and I are so inspired by the courage and eloquence of these young men and women from Stoneman Douglas High School,” George Clooney said in a statement. “Our family will be there on March 24 to stand side by side with this incredible generation of young people from all over the country.”
The Clooneys added that they were donating the half a million dollars in the name of their twin babies Ella and Alexander to help pay for this “groundbreaking event,” the statement read.
Amal Clooney, incidentally, will be in San Jose on Friday, serving as a keynote speaker at the annual Watermark Conference for Women Silicon Valley.
In an appearance on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday, one Stoneman Douglas High student Alex Wind said this is the first march, but it will not be the last.
“We will be marching for the 17 we lost at our school,” Wind said. “We will be marching for everyone we lost at the Newtown Sandy Hook shooting, at Columbine, at Virginia Tech, in San Bernardino, Orlando at the Pulse shooting and at Las Vegas.”
George and Amal Clooney echoed the teens’ passion and urgency in explaining why they support the demonstration.