A lot of students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida didn’t participate in the National School Walkout on Friday for fear of punishment. However, student activist David Hogg says the future of the movement relies on far more than a moment of silence and an hour or two of activism.
Hogg, one of the most prominent figureheads from the #NeverAgain movement, told CNN on Friday that the actions and efforts of other students, especially those from diverse communities, need to be a focus of media coverage if the movement is to succeed.
“It shouldn’t be the five people that are now being shown so much on the news,” he said. “What should be the story here are students in [Miami Northwestern High School] that walked out, and realizing that they were covered differently than we were.”
Students at that high school walked out on multiple days to protest gun violence after a current student and a former student were both killed in a shooting in a Miami neighborhood in April. While a majority of the MSD activists have been white, the victims of the Liberty City shooting, as well as the majority of the students who showed up for the walkout, were black. MSD activists have taken care in recent weeks to address the racial disparity in gun violence coverage.
“We all suffer the same,” Hogg said. “We have to ensure that everybody’s voice is heard equally, or nobody’s will be.”
Hogg also said the key to making the walkouts work is to transform that momentum into voting power.
“We can have all the walkouts we want, but if we don’t walk to that ballot box and make our voices heard, these politicians aren’t going to listen.”
CNN’s Kevin Conlon contributed to this report.