Sustaining #NeverAgain

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Sustaining #NeverAgain
By Melissa Ward-Peterson

Note: Monthly op-eds are submitted by BYD members and members of the local Democratic community. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Broward Democratic Party executive or its members, or the Broward Young Democrats executive board or its membership.

I was 12 when the shooting at Columbine happened and the possibility of such a tragedy at a school was seared into my consciousness. I was 19 and living on my college campus when I received news of the Virginia Tech shooting. I attended a vigil with my Resident Assistant; that shooting hit home for us. By the time of the Sandy Hook tragedy, I was 25 and working at a university. My youngest sister, Faith, was 12, and I remember experiencing a new kind of fear. The reality: no place of learning was safe. This could happen to my baby sister.

February 14, 2018, and a new school is added to the list: Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Just 10 miles north of where I live. I’m 30, and have been working in higher education for close to 10 years. Faith is 17, and a senior in high school. The heartache and fear for our places of work and learning return. But this time, there is also hope. I watch in awe as Faith and her friends protest, march, and lead under the banner of #NeverAgain. I want to adopt them all and make sure they are sleeping and eating and taking time for themselves. I find myself wondering what my fellow older millennials and I would have done if we had been armed with the power of Twitter in high school. An impossible question, but for this moment, I know one thing: it is time to commit to action.

As inspiring as the #NeverAgain movement has been, it is also shameful that it took teenagers to shake this country awake to the importance of civic action. They should be focusing on prom and graduation and decor for their freshman dorm rooms. So, let us be sure to lift some of the #NeverAgain burden from Generation Z. Put your sneakers on. Knock on doors. Register voters. Run for office. Let’s be sure these kids know the sustainability of #NeverAgain isn’t their sole responsibility. It’s ours too.