Hopson supports student walkout protesting gun violence
A student-led walkout to protest gun violence on April 20 will have support from Shelby County Schools leadership.
Superintendent Dorsey Hopson endorsed the idea of walkout to protest gun violence on April 20 after a meeting with 10 students from the district on Wednesday.
The students, represented by several SCS high schools and organized through Bridges, USA, showed Hopson a Power Point presentation of their plan.
Hopson called it “one of the most amazing presentations I’ve ever seen” and said there were still details to be worked out, but he was generally in support of their ideas.
“Based on this incredible presentation, I have agreed to be supportive of the walkout as long as it’s done in an orderly fashion and as long as we work some of these details out that these wonderful students have agreed to continue working on,” Hopson said in a video posted on the Bridges, USA, Facebook page.
No students will be suspended or expelled for walking out of class that day to participate, he said, and no teachers will be disciplined for supporting the event.
“I’m just so proud of these students, and so proud of the advocacy they’re showing, and the way they’re really showing true leadership,” Hopson said.
Hali Smith, a senior at Central High School, said she wasn’t expecting their pitch to go over quite so well.
“I definitely assumed there would be some type of push-back,” Smith said. After all, they were asking for his blessing to cut class. But Hopson was open and positive about their request, she said.
“We were just very clear and organized and we wanted to be taken seriously,” Smith said. “We are authentic students who want change in our city.”
Mahal Burr, a “change coordinator” with Bridges, said the students left the meeting “ecstatic.”
“Superintendent Hopson was very engaged, he definitely heard the young people and what they were asking for,” Burr said.
The students told Hopson the walkout would not be a protest against the school district, but rather a call for a collaborative solution to making schools safer.
Hopson will also make time for the students at the April board meeting to present their ideas.
Hopson, who often shies away from political involvement, is part of a Shelby County task force looking at issues of school safety. That task force will make recommendations, including to the state legislature.
April 20, the day of the walkout, will mark 19 years since the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado. Students across the country have planned to walk out of school, the second such event since 17 people died at a Parkland, Florida high school on Valentine’s Day. SCS students were on spring break during the first event last week.
They hope to have an event over multiple hours that includes 17 minutes of silence for the Parkland victims, student speakers and a “die-in” where some students lie on the ground and others draw their outlines in chalk.
Students in Memphis are also planning to march on Saturday in conjunction with the national March For Our Lives event calling for stricter gun control laws. About 1,500 people have signed up for the Memphis walk, which will start at 10 a.m. and go from Clayborn Temple downtown to the Civil Rights Museum.
Reach Jennifer Pignolet at jennifer.pignolet@ commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @JenPignolet.