Port Huron Northern students held a walkout Thursday morning to spread awareness of gun violence. About 500 students, with coordination from the school administration, left third hour classes on Thursday to gather outside in the football field for a moment of silence and a lap around the track as supervised by staff members, before returning to classes.
The walkout was organized by a freshman inspired by the speech given by the graduating class president during the graduation ceremony the week before. With 25 chairs in the field to commemorate victims of two recent shootings– four for Oxford, 21 for Uvalde– students described the walkout as heartbreaking, but unfortunately necessary, many of them admitting that they feel unsafe going to school or they fear for their parents who work as teachers, the student organizer noting that “while thoughts and prayers are nice, nothing will done” until there are changes and action taken against the issue.
The peaceful walkout took place ahead of two other anti-gun violence protests in Port Huron on Saturday, the first starting at 11:00 a.m. at Pine Grove Park and running until 1:00 p.m. so that participants could join the March For Our Lives event at the southwest corner of the park. The March For Our Lives event, where participants walked Main Street sidewalks, heading downtown and towards the Municipal Office Center, coincided with the national march, and was last held in Port Huron four years ago following the Parkland, Florida school shootings.
Dozens of participants held placards, carrying a long paper chain with the name, date and place of a school shooting written on each paper link, spanning more than 70 incidents in only the last few years. Saturday’s organizers say they had more than 100 people attending the first event, with about half of them staying to march.
