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Travis Stoker | The Seahawk

The March for Our Lives protest occurred nationwide on Saturday, March 24.

Citizens of Wilmington participated in the March for Our Lives rally on Saturday, as more than 2,000 protestors marched along the Riverwalk in downtown Wilmington and crowded around the Lennon Federal Courthouse.

The Saturday afternoon crowd showed that age was of no importance as young and old marched together chanting, “Hey hey, ho ho, the NRA has got to go,” and “This is what democracy looks like.”

Liz Hines, a professor at UNC Wilmington, told The Seahawk that she attended the march because she is “an opponent of guns in the hands of people that shouldn’t have them and they should just be in the hands of the police and the military.”

Many female protestors held signs indicating that they were part of the activist group Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America [MDA], which was founded in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in 2012.

Wilmington was one of many cities around the United States and the world to hold a March for Our Lives Rally. In Washington, D.C. USA Today reported that over 800,000 people participated in what was called the “largest single-day protest in the history of the nation’s capital.”

Highlighting other parts of the world that held March for Our Lives protests, the BBC reported that “more than 800 sister protests were planned nationwide and abroad, with solidarity events taking place in Edinburgh, London, Geneva, Sydney and Tokyo”

Protest signs during the Wilmington March for Our Lives Rally ranged from serious to satirical, with one marcher dressed up as the grim reaper with a sign, which read “The NRA feeds the grim reaper.”

Once the crowd was gathered around Lennon Federal Courthouse, 14-year-old New Hanover High School student and event organizer Summer Marshburn gave an impassioned speech to the thousands gathered with a call for civic involvement which stressed the importance of voting in the 2018 midterm elections.

Marshburn singled out Congressmen David Rouzer, who represents North Carolina’s 7th congressional district. Rouzer will be up for reelection in November and Marshburn was quick to inform the crowd of his pro-gun stance.

On Rouzer’s website, he stated his view on the Second Amendment:

“I am a proud member of the NRA and a strong supporter of our Second Amendment rights. The Second Amendment is about much more than the right to hunt, as some seem to suggest. It is about protecting ourselves from enemies foreign and domestic.”

Sentiments such as this were not well received at Saturday’s march as the crowd threatened to “vote him out” with renewed calls for an increase in political efficacy from the marchers in the 2018 primary elections.