WASHINGTON -- Actions may speak louder than words, but silence can be deafening, whether it's the silence of the Republican Party on gun control or the silence of somewhere between 500,000 and 800,000 people in the streets of the nation's capital.
Emma Gonzalez, Marjory Stoneman Douglas student and one of the faces of the March for Our Lives movement in the wake of the Parkland shooting, spent six minutes and 20 seconds on stage, mostly in silence, on Saturday afternoon in front of a sea of protesters.
Gonzalez occupied the stage for the same amount of time it took the shooter to claim 17 students' lives on Wednesday, Feb. 14.
A timer beeped and echoed across the expanse of signs held high, which bore the words "Never again."
"Fight for your lives before it's someone else's job," Gonzalez said, leaving the stage as tears streamed down her face.
It was easy to lose count of how many students came up to the stage to share their stories of how gun violence has impacted their lives.
One boy talked about losing his brother to gun violence. A girl recounted a time when she was held at gunpoint at the grocery store.
Naomi, an 11-year-old girl from Alexandria, Virginia, commanded the stage with her speech on the importance of remembering those who are disproportionately the victims of gun violence in this country.
"I am here to acknowledge and represent the African-American girls whose stories don't make the front page of every national newspaper, whose stories don't lead on the evening news," she said.
Samantha Fuentes, another Marjory Stoneman Douglas student who was wounded in the shooting, led the crowd in singing "Happy Birthday" to Nicholas Dworet, one of the students who was shot and killed in front of her.
Nicholas' 18th birthday would have been on the day of the march.
Fuentes was overcome by nerves and vomited behind the lectern on stage before quickly recovering and continuing her speech.
"I just threw up on international television, and it feels great!" Fuentes said. "Our mission is simple, and our visions are unbeatable. Let's keep the guns out of the hands of the wrong people and keep them in the hands of the safe and the reasonable. So, either you can join us or be on the side of history who prioritized their guns over the lives of others."
Between each speaker or musical performer, the crowd broke out into chants of "Vote them out!" "Enough is enough!" or "Hey, hey, ho, ho, the NRA has got to go!" with smatterings of laughter and applause after each round completed.
Bagged lunches were handed out to the thousands of young students in attendance, many of them carrying their own homemade signs:
"My dress code is stricter than our gun laws."
"Magazines are for reading."
"Thoughts and prayers don't do shit."
A bright orange price tag hanging from the podium fluttered in the breeze. The price? A dollar and five cents.
"When you take 3,140,167 -- the number of students enrolled in Florida schools -- and divide by $3,303,355 -- the amount of money Marco Rubio has received from the National Rifle Association, it comes out to a dollar and five cents," Sarah Chadwick, a Marjory Stoneman Douglas student, said. "Is that all we're worth to these politicians? A dollar and five cents? Was $17.85 all it cost you that day, Mr. Rubio? Well, I say, one life is worth more than all the guns in America."
Despite the fact that she read the numbers out of order -- the NRA dollars are divided by the number of students to amount to one dollar and five cents -- there was no confusion about Chadwick's point.
Many students wore the price tags. Others wore targets that read, "Will I be next?"
Martin Luther King Jr.'s granddaughter, Yolanda Renee King, told the crowd about her own dream of "a gun-free world."
"Spread the word!" King said, leading the audience in a chant. "Have you heard? All across the nation. We are going to be a great generation."
Previous generations have failed to end gun violence in this country. But it seems clear today's generation students are ready to take on the challenge.
Kids could be heard singing along to Lin Manuel Miranda and Ben Platt's song "Found/Tonight," written for the march, as it reverberated through the streets.
"And when our children tell their story, they'll tell the story of tonight -- no matter what they tell you -- tomorrow there'll be more of us telling the story of tonight."
brunnsj@miamioh.edu
@samantha_brunn