Students behind the historic March for Our Lives walkouts are taking their movement to the next level this summer: action.
Led by students from Parkland, Fla., March for Our Lives has launched a national bus tour to register young voters and campaign for gun-control legislation ahead of the November midterm elections. The 20-state tour is scheduled to stop in Minnesota from Sunday through Tuesday.
The Road to Change tour includes 20 students, mostly from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, where a shooter killed 17 people on Valentine's Day in one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.
"Thousands rallied behind us at the walkouts and marches we [held]," said Ryan Deitsch, a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School graduate and bus-tour member. "In the second phase, we want to empower people to express themselves and change the system through voting."
Their focus is on the 4 million people turning 18 this year.
Parkland students on the tour along with 50 local students will stop at the Twin Cities Pride Festival on Sunday for a voter-registration drive. Later that day, there will be a town-hall meeting at Osseo Senior High School. The tour will also host a cookout at 1 p.m. on Monday before heading to Moorhead, Minn., for another event the next day.
"We are aspiring for a system where people do not die at the hands of the people who should not have hands on guns in the first place," said Austin Berger, a University of Minnesota student who is coordinating the event at the Pride Festival on behalf of Students Demand Action, one of the groups that organized the spring walkouts.
Other groups, such as Moms Demand Action, West Metro Walkout, and Minnesota Students for Change, are also assisting with local events.