On Saturday (March 24, 2018), at 6:00AM, forty-nine of us boarded a bus, chartered by the AFT Local 1904, to participate in the student-organized, student-led
March of Our Lives at Washington, D.C.
Our group consisted primarily of Montclair Students--many from various organizations on campus, such as the MSU branch of the NAACP, Kappa Delta Pi and students from the Women and Gender Studies program. Also part of our group were several middle school age students who are family and friends of adults in the group and MSU faculty and officers of the Local who were attending to support the students.
AFT National''s headquarters, just blocks away from the event, served as a "home base" for AFT members from around the nation and provided a generous assortment of snacks, drinks, sign making materials and a quiet space set aside for march participants in need.
We successfully joined an estimated 800,000 marchers on Pennsylvania Avenue marching for gun reform, and social justice. The program consisted of moving and powerful addresses by students from Stoneman Douglas High School of Parkland, Florida, other students from around the nation, and various celebrity artists who raised their voices in support of the movement. The event was historic, and perhaps the beginning of a new wave of progressive change in the United States.
We are pleased that MSU was well represented there, and that our Local was able to play a vital role in facilitating our group's attendance.