Last of two parts
J.J. McCorvey of Fast Company magazine continues his updates of the fatal shooting at Majory Stoneman Douglas (MSD) High School in Parkland, Fla..
“The movement’s strength resides in the roughly four million Americans who will turn 18 this year and be able to influence the midterm elections. Young people ‘have the potential to be the biggest voting block in November,’ said Jen Tolentino, the director of policy and civic tech for the nonprofit Rock the Vote, which powers online registration forms and text-to-vote codes for March for Our Lives. Rock the Vote said it registered more young people through March for Our Lives than many other partners.
“Private enterprise is taking note. After March for Our Lives was announced, executives began reaching out. Lyft donated free rides to sister marches in 50 cities; Delta Air Lines offered chartered flights for Marjory Stoneman Douglas students and families to attend the Washington, D.C. event. Bank of America has stopped lending to some assault-style weapons manufacturers, and Citigroup prohibits retailers that use its financial services from selling guns to people under 21 or who haven’t passed a background check. And both Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods raised the age limit for gun sales from 18 to 21. ‘We have heard you. The Nation has heard you,’ Dick’s CEO Edward Stack wrote of the activists when he announced that his stores were banning assault rifles.
“The students have begun engaging both companies and consumers in new, more proactive ways. When Fox News host Laura Ingraham mocked student David Hogg in a tweet in late March, he pushed a list of her advertisers to his nearly 800,000 followers. Within days, more than 20 of her show’s sponsors, including Nestlé, IBM, and Hulu, had withdrawn. Hogg’s logic is simple: ‘If somebody’s doing something stupid and it’s just for the money,’ he said, of the way Ingraham baited him to appease her base, ‘go after the money.’ In April, Hogg launched another boycott, aimed at investment giants BlackRock and Vanguard to protest their holdings in gun manufacturers. This came even after BlackRock, which wields more than $6 Trillion in assets, created two gun-free funds in response to the shooting.
“Hogg’s latest effort was directed at the supermarket chain Publix for its contributions to the Florida gubernatorial candidate of Adam Putnam, who has called himself ‘a proud National Rifle Association (NRA) Sellout.’ Two days after Hogg called for a series of ‘die-in’ protests throughout the grocers’ Florida stores and just before the demonstrations were to begin–Publix announced that it was suspending all corporate political contributions. ‘So when are we doing a die-in at Trump Hotel?’ Hogg tweeted cheekily.
“The March for Our Lives founders are aware that their prominence and impact stems, in large part, from their being white and well-off. They’ve responded by seeking a wide range of allies. They speak frequently with Michael Skolnik, who runs a social impact consultancy called the Soze Agency and serves on the board of the Trayvon Martin Foundation. And they’ve reached out to both Chicago’s Peace Warriors, a group of black students who have been combating gun violence in their neighborhoods, and the Dream Defenders, a Florida-based organization that was formed after the murder of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla.. ‘We feel a new sense of inspiration around the possibility of a cross-class, cross-race movement here in Florida,’ said codirector Rachel Gilmer. ‘This movement is bigger than the Parkland kids who are on TV.’
“By expanding the gun-safety conversation beyond its previous silos, the March for Our Lives founders are ensuring that the cause doesn’t live—or die—with them alone. It’s why they ceded the stage at the march to speakers like Naomi Wadler, the 11-year-old who called attention to the disproportionate number of black female victims of gun violence, and 17-year-old Edna Chavez, who told the crowd how she learned at a young age to duck bullets in South L.A. ‘It was simple privilege that got us the spotlight,’ said MSD student Cameron Kasky. ‘We have an opportunity, a platform, and we’re dedicating ourselves to using it for everybody affected by gun violence.’ In the United States, that’s a growing—and emboldened—group of voters,” McCorvey wrote.
J.J. McCorvey is a staff writer for Fast Company, where he covers business and technology.