Thousands of students around the country are expected to walk out of their classrooms on Friday morning to protest gun violence on the 19th anniversary of the mass shooting at Columbine High School.
The April 20, 1999, shooting in Littleton, Colorado, claimed 13 victims. It was the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history until this past February, when 17 people were fatally shot at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Since the Parkland shooting, students from that school have rallied young people nationwide to demand action from lawmakers to tighten gun laws. Last month, Parkland students led a national school walkout and also staged a march in Washington, D.C. that drew hundreds of thousands of people. Both of those events attracted nationwide media attention.
Sixteen-year-old Lane Murdock—a student at Ridgefield High School in Connecticut—started planning Friday’s event right after the Parkland shooting. Unlike the March 14 walkout, which lasted 17 minutes, Friday’s protests will start at 10 a.m. (in each time zone) and last through the end of the school day.
“People ask me, like, ‘Why? Why all day?’” Murdock told National Public Radio. That's because “this is a topic that deserves more than 17 minutes.”