Florida students travel by bus to attend DC March For Our Lives rally

World Today

Some students from Florida traveled on a bus for hours to attend the rally in Washington, D.C.

And, as CGTN’s Nitza Soledad Perez explains, they have a different perspective on the march
Follow Nitza Soledad Perez on Twitter @NitzaSoledad

Many of them had never seen snow. Forty-four students from the Miami inner city, the poor neighborhoods of South Florida, made their way to Washington.Thirty two hours on a bus with one stop in Atlanta and finally D.C.

They jammed, they protested and they tried to make themselves heard.

“I feel that we came all the way out here to say nothing. It hits me on my heart because I know because it’s too many of us out here that had had too many brothers and sisters that have been killed. We have friends that have been killed. It’s just a cycle of nothing being changed,” told us, Kayla Williams, a Miami high school student.

They wanted more diversity, they felt unrepresented. All I see is Caucasians. I don’t see black people. They need to come to our area, we are from the urban, we are from the hood, the ghetto, this is every day for us.
For them, the everyday is gun violence.. According to the nation’s health protection agency, black children are ten times more likely to get killed by guns than children of other races.

Despite the obstacles, they say they have hope.Zion Cooper, a 14 year old freshman says he will remember the moment forever, “I’m going to be part of history right now, when my kids, my grandkids see this, in 30 years from now, they will say this is the youth that made the change for them 113037 I feel more historic and ecstatic right now.”

Once the group returns to Florida, the students plan their own march in Miami. They tell me that they don’t want celebrities, they don’t care for the show. They just want the rest of society to understand them and help them bring about change.