On March 14, 2018, students in schools across the country walked out of class. For most schools, the walkouts began at 10:00am and last for 17 minutes, representing the 17 lives lost in the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School exactly one month before. For two weeks before the march, a group of Apopka High School students met with administrators and teachers to plan an event that would reflect the concerns of a large portion of our school population.
Below are the speeches and poems presented during the Apopka High School Enough! Walkout.
Mia Rabanal, a junior, presented the introduction:
Fellow Blue Darters, please join me as we pay our respects to the 17 lives cut short by the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School just one month ago.
Please remain silent as we recognize each victim by name, followed by an additional minute of silence in recognition of those still recovering from the attack.
Alyssa Alhadeff, 14
Scott Beigel, 35
Martin Duque Anguiano, 14
Nicholas Dworet, 17
Aaron Feis, 37
Jaime Guttenberg, 14
Chris Hixon, 49
Luke Hoyer, 15
Cara Loughran, 14
Gina Montalto, 14
Joaquin Oliver, 17
Alaina Petty, 14
Meadow Pollack, 18
Helena Ramsay, 17
Alex Schachter, 14
Carmen Schentrup, 16
Peter Wang, 15
We, the students of Apopka High School, will do our best to make sure our voices speak for you.
Today we are all Eagles.
Cassidy Johnson, a senior, read her original poem, “Marjory Stoneman Douglas”:
Hi. My name is Marjory.
I’m a national merit scholar finalist, a geography teacher,
an assistant football coach, varsity swimmer, Venezuelan immigrant,
member of the marching band, and I’m going to college in the fall.
Hi, I’m Marjory Stoneman.
Sorry, sometimes I forget. I was Marjory Stoneman.
I died on Valentine’s Day. I have been dead for a month.
I am the prom dress never worn
the report card never signed
winning point never scored
the dorm room never moved into.
I am the empty classroom forever stained in blood.
My name was Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
And it is not too soon to have this conversation, it’s far too late.
Too late for your empty thoughts and prayers to save my soul . . . .
but it’s not too late to save yours.
My name was Marjory Stoneman Douglas and you have failed me.
You buried my unlimited potential 6ft under.
Your failure does not lie in legislation or mental capacity, but in your moral deficiency.
If you truly valued my life then 20 first graders would have been enough.
If you truly valued my life then 50 audience members would have been too much.
If you truly valued my life then 35 people praying to their God would have spurred you into action.
If you truly valued my life then 49 people, not much older than I, would not have been shot and killed 20 miles from where we stand here today.
But you didn’t. You didn’t value mine, and you didn’t value theirs.
My name is Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Fail me no more.
Steven Billings Larson, a senior, presented a speech:
In the past few days, I’ve received many questions about the walkout by both administrators and students, and after constantly thinking them over and even discussing with a few of our peers, I realized that all those questions are really just one: What is the point? Is it to pay our respects to those who have fallen? We’ve done so but that’s not the point. So what’s the point? Is it to get outta class and chill for 20 minutes? Not even close.
Today we are here to make a statement. We are here to begin to make change. We are here to make demands of the government while also making equal demands of ourselves. For those of us who are 18, we know that we are now allowed and have a responsibility to vote in city, county, state, and national elections. If you are registered, then vote. Vote every single time you have the chance because no matter how small you may feel, your voice makes a big difference.
Now what about the rest of us? Those who are under 18, you can’t vote yet, so why be here? What is the point? The point is you can make a difference to, by doing something that is just as important as voting. Something all of us can, should, and if we are serious about making a change, will do. That, ladies and gentleman, is to acknowledge one another. Communicate and form positive relationships with each other. We all know, whether we’d like to admit it or not, relationships are strong variable in our lives. Relationships are the reason we wake up in the morning, they dictate our moods, our schedules, and other key aspects of our livelihood. Everyone here wants to feel like they belong, whether at home, school, or work, but not everyone here is willing to initiate said relationships. Some of us are introverted, broken, or isolated because of past experiences and others are completely extroverted. We thrive in social settings and creating relationships. However, this does not make us better. This does not give those who are outgoing a justifiable reason to ridicule and further exclude those who have already secluded themselves away from society. Instead, our goal should be to embrace those people. Assimilate them into our own group of friends or introduce them to someone that you know they would connect with. There maybe be pushback from some in your group, but instead of letting them pressure you out of that opportunity, pressure them into joining you in helping that person, because something as simple as a hello with a smile, could mean the difference between a beautiful beginning and a tragic ending.
If we understand and accept our obligations to embrace each other, we can do a lot more than reduce the chances of violence amongst each other, we can change the world. It is crucial that we continue to be passionate about the issues being discussed today, not just for a few days or weeks, but for however long it takes to make our change. We cannot grow weary in doing good, or we will fail in our attempts like others have in the past. So to conclude I’ll ask this, what is the point? The point is as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr once said, “What you kids do here today, will affect the lives of children who have not even been born yet.”
Juan DeJesus, a senior, read his original poem, “What If They Were We?”:
February 14, 2018. 2:19pm, teachers and young adults within classrooms worried about their education,
Gunshots.
Bullets pour down like acid rain in the middle of what seemed to be like a normal day,
Gunshots.
Call 911; Rescue too late.
Teachers run and protect wondering if it’s their fate,
Gunshots.
17 dead, huh.
What if they were we?
December 14, 2012. 9:35am, a door is opened, silence fills the air. 
Teachers and students walk the halls so unprepared.
Gunshots.
Teachers and little ones hide in rooms.
Call 911. She will die to protect you.
Fear fills the school wondering if its their doom
Gunshots,
26 gone
Close your eyes, they say. Don’t look at what you’ve left behind, they say.
“We are all broken today,”
26 dead, huh.
What if they were we?
Every day roughly 100 will never carry out another day
but you have the audacity to tell me
the second amendment gives you the right ,
to have a weapon designed for straight death and destruction…
murder.
It’s your right, huh?
Tell me then
Where is our right to for safety?
How do I feel safe
When I never know if I’m a walking bullseye
How do I feel safe
When a car gets more attention
Than guns.
When mental disorders are just laughed at 
Instead of being taking seriously,
And when checking a person’s history
Before handing out a lethal weapon
All of a sudden became a privacy problem?
Understand me
I’m not taking your gun away
Full honesty, I don’t want it.
I just want to wake up knowing that the blood in
My body shall not be spilled
I want the future generations
To carry out their dreams
Not worry about if their gonna die from someone who’s life was not fulfilled
I want to stop feeling
Like the country we call great is a lie
So with the voice I have and the breath that’s in my body
I shall say
To those that say children don’t have a right to speak out
What if they…were we?
The final speech was presented by junior JC Martinez:
In 1999, when 15 students were shot and killed on their school campus, we sent our thoughts and prayers to Columbine.
In 2007, when 56 students were shot and 32 of them killed at a university, we sent our thoughts and prayers to Virginia Tech.
In 2012, when 20 1st graders and 6 of their teachers were murdered in class, we sent our thoughts and prayers to Sandy Hook.
In 2015, when 19 were shot and 10 killed on their school campus, we sent our thoughts and prayers to Roseburg.
In 2018, when 31 students were shot and 17 murdered just three hours from where we stand now, we sent our thoughts and prayers to Parkland, Florida.
The time for thoughts and prayers is over; it’s time for policy and change.
And yet some say that we shouldn’t politicize this, that we should do nothing more than remember the lives lost.
Then why, after 3000 people were killed by plane hijackers on 9/11, did we rapidly implement strict plane safety and the Patriot Act? To all the adults who do not want to politicize this shooting, where were you after 9/11, saying that we shouldn’t politicize the hijacking; where were you saying that we should just remember the lives lost? Where were you saying that if someone wanted to hijack a plane, that no plane restrictions would stop them? Where were you?
Because after enforcing strict plane safety regulations, we have NOT had another 9/11; that’s because plane safety works—just like gun safety works. And that doesn’t mean that all crime will be eliminated, but it does mean that gun violence will drop. When 35 people were shot and killed at Port Arthur, Australia, it was their 14th mass shooting in 18 years, and they responded by enacting strict gun laws; 22 years later, and they have not had a SINGLE mass shooting since. Gun Laws work. Banning semi-automatic rifles works. Making high capacity magazines illegal works. Limiting the number of guns someone can buy works. Gun Laws work!
And this is not to say that we don’t think mental health is a factor, but to any politicians bought out by the NRA who try to say that mass shootings are not a guns issue, you are dead wrong.
Every developed country has people who are mentally ill, but only the U.S.—the country with the loosest gun laws in the developed world—has just under one mass shooting per day. America is a patient with cancer, and we have doctors saying that instead of removing the tumor, we should only focus on adjusting the patient’s lifestyle. We are here to say that we should focus on the patient’s lifestyle, but not until you remove that tumor.
Yet it seems like some politicians just want to put a band aid over this tumor; our governor Rick Scott just raised the minimum age to buy an assault rifle from 18 to 21 and made bump stocks illegal. And while we accept any change for the better, bump stocks have never been used in a school shooting, and the vast majority of mass shooters are from ages 20-49, above 21 anyway, so this cannot be the only change that politicians use to try to shut us up—to try and make us forget. We cannot let them off the hook just for doing the bare minimum, giving us 3 years. We are not in this movement only to add 3 years to our lives, we are in this movement to ensure the opportunity to live out our lives.
So while we should mourn the victims, the time is now to act as a people to make sure that the next 17 families don’t have to lose their sons and daughters. The time is now to act as a people to demand these common sense gun laws, because this is not an issue of red vs blue, democrat vs republican, or any other labels we create to divide ourselves. This is about humanity. This is about saving lives—democratic and republican lives, because both parties are losing loved ones, and as the shooter didn’t discriminate—neither should we.
So look around you; see the flyers going around and use them to have your voice heard—register to vote.
Look around you; you are part of the 25 million high school students nationwide whose vote in the near future—especially the half of us who will vote this November—desperately matters to politicians. And while I can’t speak on the behalf of everyone here, I can say that whoever promotes the most aggressive gun control agenda, democrat or republican, will get my vote, and that whoever takes money from the NRA, I’ll work to vote out.
Look around you and see a historic movement where students and adults all across the country are transcending political differences and taking action to save lives—to save our lives, because we are the future, and in 15 years we don’t want our kids to be afraid to go to school. We are the future, and in 15 years we don’t want “bullet proof vest” to be on our kids’ school supply list. We are the future, and we will be the ones to make the decision to stop sending just our thoughts and prayers, but to demand more; to make sure that Stoneman Douglas is the last school massacre; to make sure that this happens never again.