The Washington University March for Our Lives club participated in Saturday’s March for Our Lives protest in downtown St. Louis after holding an on-campus rally and poster-making event Friday.

The March for Our Lives protest—the main event was held in Washington, D.C. and inspired hundreds of sibling protests in St. Louis and around the world—called for stricter gun control laws in the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla. In addition to the poster build, the club’s Friday event included speeches from community leaders and participants called local representatives to advocate for gun control.

Freshman Lexi Lampkin, one of the club’s co-founders, emphasized the value of involving students in the protest and giving them an opportunity to speak out.

Thomas Whitney | Student Life

Protestors at the St. Louis March for Our Lives hold up signs spelling out “enough” Saturday, March 24. The March for Our Lives brought together students, teachers and activists from across the country in protest of gun violence in the wake of the Feb. 14 shooting at a Parkland, Fla. school.

“I feel like for me it’s a very important issue that obviously is becoming more prevalent now with everything that’s been going on lately,” Lampkin said. “Students are heading this movement, so it’s important to bring this to Wash. U. and let Wash. U. students also have their voices be heard and know that they do have a say in things and they can create change.”

Club co-founder and sophomore Zach Vincent believes that gun violence prevention is a universal topic that bridges the gap between high school and college students.

“There’s a little bit of a disconnect between college life and high school life. But the issue of gun violence really still hits home for many of us,” Vincent said. “As most of us know, there were incidents involving guns on campus recently. So, I think that the epidemic that’s gripping the nation takes a different form but is very much affecting us on campus in different ways.”

Vincent saw Friday’s poster build and rally as an occasion to gather and educate students ahead of the following day’s protest.

“It was a really great way to bring students together, rally them around this issue and let them listen to the expertise of doctors and elected representatives who have been working on this issue for a really long time,” Vincent said.

Vincent believes students should use opportunities like the march to voice their opinions and challenge their representatives to change the laws that facilitate gun violence.

“Especially here in Missouri—where we have really terrible gun laws that allow people to buy without permits and carry openly no matter where they are in the state—it’s important that we make our voices heard on our campus here by saying that these laws don’t protect us and that what the state has done doesn’t have our best interests in mind,” Vincent said.

Lampkin spoke at the St. Louis march after being selected from a pool of applicants, touching on gun violence and her personal connection to the Parkland shooting.

“I talked about my connection to Parkland at the beginning. I knew one of the kids who was shot, and he survived,” Lampkin said. “I talked about that, the Missouri gun laws and gun violence and having students have their voices heard.”

Lampkin appreciated the chance to speak on behalf of the St. Louis community and broadcast her message to a large audience.

Carrie Phillips | Student Life

Protestors gather at the March for Our Lives in downtown St. Louis Saturday. Students from
Washington University were among those to attend the march in protest of gun violence. march.

“It was really incredible to get to speak in front of all the people that were there. I think that it was about 10,000 to 15,000 people, so it was really incredible to share my ideas and show how important of an issue that gun violence is,” Lampkin said.

Sophomore Amanda Weinstein, a Parkland native and a March for Our Lives Club co-founder, attended the D.C. protest on Saturday and said it was an invaluable experience.

“I had the opportunity to be pretty close to a lot of the families of the victims because I am from Parkland,” she said. “I was up in the action for the majority of the time, which was a really interesting experience because you could really see the expressions on these kids’ faces as they spoke.”

Weinstein felt uniquely connected to and impacted by the march as a Parkland native.

“Throughout this whole experience, I was thinking, ‘I can’t believe this is my hometown. This is the place where I grew up,’” Weinstein said.

Weinstein also noted the significance of her hometown in inspiring a national movement that connected victims of gun violence from around the country.

“A huge portion of the people at the march and at marches all over the country have been affected by gun violence, so they’re also feeling what I have felt,” she said. “But knowing that this is all because of people from my hometown just holds a lot of weight.”