ParklanD Birth of a Movement

Emma González called BS.

David Hogg called out Adult America.

The uprising had begun.

Since Columbine unleashed an epidemic, we felt powerless to stop these horrors. America remains awash in guns. Parkland changed everything. These astonishing students had learned the lessons of Newtown, and struck back lightning fast.

Parkland chronicles the birth of a movement — the first real hope to finally end the scourge of the school shooter era, which began before they were born. How they channeled their anger into a movement is a remarkable story.

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Cameron Kasky recruited a colorful band of drama kids and brought them all together in his living room to map out a movement. Four days after escaping Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, two dozen extraordinary kids announced the audacious March for Our Lives. A month later, it was the fourth largest protest in American history.

I shadowed the March For Our Lives kids nearly ten months, from the first weekend, to take you behind the scenes from inception through the March For Our Lives, two national school walkouts, the daunting 2-month Road to Change summer bus tour, Change the Ref, their return to school, and the lead-up to the mid-term elections.

This is a completely different take on the tragedy than Columbine. That book was about what drove the killers, and how the community recovered. Parkland is about neither — I refuse to even name the pathetic killer, who is now irrelevant. This book is entirely about the response — the amazing March For Our Lives kids. It's about a way out.

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It was quite an odyssey. Finally, a story of hope.