Call to action: One month after a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., left 17 dead and 14 wounded, Brown students organized a show of solidarity on the College Green on National School Walkout Day. Nick Dentamaro

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Date March 14, 2018
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Photos: National School Walkout at Brown

As high school students and others gather nationwide on the one-month anniversary of the Parkland shooting, hundreds of Brown community members convened on the College Green to call for increased attention to gun violence.

Organizer Keiko Cooper-Hohn
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"Led by the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, we will join our hands, our hearts, our brainpower, our willpower, our voices and our wallets, and we will change the course of history," organizer Keiko Cooper-Hohn told the crowd.

Organizers hand out orange stickers
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Event organizers handed out orange stickers that read "S.O.S. Save Our Students." The color orange has been used to symbolize resistance against gun violence since 2013, when 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton was shot and killed in Chicago and her friends wore orange in her honor.

Brown President Christina Paxson among the students
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"One would think that after the heartbreak of Parkland, Orlando, Las Vegas, Charleston, Sandy Hook and other mass shootings, clear-eyed solutions to a public policy problem might prevail," Brown President Christina Paxson said in an address before joining the audience. "Sadly, that has not been the case."

Students walking out of class
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Students streamed to and from the College Green, in some cases walking out of class sessions to raise awareness about school safety and the impact of gun violence.

Nina Gregg with Christina Paxson
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Rhode Island School of Design sophomore Nina Gregg, left, stood with Paxson before addressing the crowd. Gregg, a 2016 graduate of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, said she heard the news of the shooting just after returning to Providence from a trip to her hometown. "I was in disbelief," she said.

Jasmine Bacchus handing out stickers
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Jasmine Bacchus handed out stickers to students on the College Green as they arrived. She and other students observed a moment of silence for the 17 people who were killed in the Parkland shooting last month.

Gregg and Cooper-Hohn share a hug
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Gregg and Cooper-Hohn shared a hug as the Brown Band played. Gregg noted in her remarks that while her hometown community was "forever changed" by the shooting, it will also be "forever making change." "Please make it with me," she implored the crowd. "We can't afford not to. There's too much at stake."

Event organizers and hundreds of Brown students
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Gregg, event organizers and hundreds of Brown students looked on as the Brown Band closed the event with a solemn musical number.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — At 10 a.m. on Wednesday, March 14, some 400 members of the Brown community gathered on a snowy College Green to stand together in a student-led show of solidarity against gun violence.

The event, organized by Brown undergraduate Keiko Cooper-Hohn, was timed to coincide with hundreds of other planned demonstrations at elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, universities and colleges across the country. The idea for National School Walkout Day originated with a group of juniors and seniors at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where a Feb. 14 shooting left 17 dead and 14 wounded.

On hand at the invitation of Cooper-Hohn to offer perspective were Brown University President Christina Paxson; Erin Arcand, a Brown alumna who shared a statement on behalf of Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed; and Nina Gregg, a Rhode Island School of Design sophomore who graduated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2016.

Photographer Nick Dentamaro captured highlights.