ATLANTA — “Enough is enough” was the rallying cry outside Atlanta City Hall Thursday night as high school students demanded an end to violent crimes that are taking the lives of young people in Atlanta and beyond.
The students who organized the rally spoke with life and death urgency, saying they all have friends and classmates who have been innocent victims of violent crime.
“How many more lives have to end?” said Eleanor Jones, a senior at Drew Charter School, and the Chair of the Atlanta Public Schools’ Student Advisory Council. “How many more mothers have to bury their sons? How many more people have to be lost to gun violence before we say enough is enough?”
The rally comes after the shooting on the 17th Street Bridge near Atlantic Station last month that killed 12-year-old Zyion Charles, and 15-year-old Cameron Jackson, along with more crimes that are claiming the metro's youth far too soon.
They rallied for change -- living in fear, they said, but determined to fight for their lives and for the hope of youth, powered by their passion and anger; and they sounded an alarm.
“It’s important to let our legislators know that we, as students, are feeling the pain of the gun violence, first-hand,” Jones said.
The students drew some of Atlanta’s and Fulton County’s power-brokers to their rally, including the mayor, police chief and sheriff, and the students proposed a ten-point plan to begin to end violence and save young lives.
“We are the future of Atlanta,” Zion Byrd, a Senior at Midtown High School said. “We are the future of America. And we are the future of the world. And I feel like we have to start somewhere, and it starts with us.”
The students said they are just beginning their work. Their next steps will include going to the State Legislature next month to lobby for state-wide programs they hope will help young people survive their childhoods.
“As leaders, we just felt responsible for the issues that were happening,” Ayden Leibert, a Senior at Maynard Jackson High School said. “And we wanted to acknowledge this, and (violent crimes) shouldn't be normal.”
They spoke their truths to power -- demanding more money for more law enforcement on and off campus, for example, and for more extensive after-school programs, and for greater access to mental health therapy and counselling for families in order to restore broken homes.
“Having mental health programs put in place to keep youth off the streets to give them the support and the love that they need to let them know that they don't need to turn to violence in order to find worthiness or things like that," Jones said.
The mayor, chief of police, sheriff and school superintendent said they are grateful to the students for working for change.