"Love, Don't Hate" - The Account of a Young Protester
4 Dec. 2014
Today, I participated in a protest. It was originally planned to be a “die-in” (an event in which several students lied on the ground as if they were dead as an attempt to clog up the hallways so people would notice.) The “die-in” lasted for exactly 15.5 minutes. The amount of time was significant to the people we we protesting for; 11 for the 11 times a black man had to tell the police he couldn’t breathe before he died; 4.5 for the amount of time it took for Treyvon Martin to die, so if you add both of those significant numbers together, you get 15.5. After the 15.5 minutes were over, the student leader of the protest received a text from WCIA Channel 3 News to bring the protest outside (This was against our original plans). Now, everyone was confused, but they refused to show it so we all followed the leader. The leader led us unto the street to start marching. We only got about 50 ft before a
got in the way and hit several people. Luckily there were no injuries that I know of. During that confusion, somehow the windshield got cracked and just like that, the protest turned from peaceful to chaotic. Everyone jumped to the side of the road and started murmuring in confusion. The principal stood right next to the driver, and said something I will always respect him for; “Love, don’t hate” was all he said, and it was as if a wave went through the crowd because everyone became silent. We stayed quiet for about two minutes before we started our protest again, this time from the sidewalk. The protest lasted from passing period to Eighth hour to about the time school ended and everyone started to disperse By the end of it, only eight people were left. I am proud to say I was one of them. However, because of the broken windshield, everything we stood for and believed is looked over and undermined. We are just thought of as a bunch of dumb kids. I believe what we said to be important and it tears me apart to see our efforts go to waste.
because we all bleed red
Aurelia Allan (age 14)
