On, Tuesday April 20th around 2pm, Philadelphia Student Union conducted their spring action. With over 50 people we walked into Rittenhouse Square from all entrances and socialized with surrounding friends.
Then......Boom! Shania Morris a 8th grader from Huey gave the signal and everyone came together in single filed lines. Then with a great fist raised in the air, we took of our hoodies and jackets to reveal our shirts. On the front it said, "We are not a Flash Mob" and on the back said, "We are" and different words like leaders, organziers, artists, etc.. I myself had on the back of mine "We are Innovators" cauz i thought it fit the type of person I was.
The event was to show the media and the public that we are the young people of the city and that ALL youth are leaders. We are your everyday people, and we cannot be labeled as violent. After the event I believed we did an awesome job because I saw people sitting down, walking, even new people entering the park, fixated on us. And that was what we wanted, we wanted to grab the attention of the public. We should that we weren't just a group of youth, but a disciplined organized, powerful group of youth coming out to stand up against violence being committed towards us.
We also wanted to talk about our Campaign for Nonviolent Schools and I believe we did a excellent job doing that task. We had over 50 people yelling to the top of their lungs with passion, when they said out loud the pledge. We also had students talking to the media saying that we were sanding up against the criminalizing of youth, underfunded schools, as well as education that builds us to be test-takers and not critical thinkers.
I think all in all it was an awesome event and we definately got our message across. At the end we all dispersed in different directions and it was amazing to see people just in awe.
Check out this link here from the daily news-http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/91608414.html
-DeVante Wilson
Carver HS
Senior