Tears rolled down Emma Gonzalez’s face as she stood in silence.
Gonzalez stopped speaking for 6 minutes, 20 seconds — the time it took a gunman to kill 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Gonzalez is a student at the school.
“Never again!” chants rang as Gonzalez stood on the podium. “Everyone in the Douglas community was forever altered,” Gonzalez said n her speech, naming each of the students killed in the mass shootings.
After saying the victims’ names, Gonzalez looked at the crowd in silence honoring their memory.
Gonzalez was one of several Stoneman Douglas students who spoke at the Washington march, who received huge roars of applause from the crowd.
If a speaker ever stuttered or stopped, the crowd would offer encouraging words.
“Fight for your lives before it’s someone else’s job,” Gonzalez said before ending her speech.
Attendees chanted Gonzalez’s name as she walked off stage.
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