March for Our Lives: hundreds of thousands demand end to gun violence – as it happened

Ryan Deitsch, a Marjory Stoneman Douglas, is on stage challenging the notion we should arm teachers with guns.

Instead, he says, teachers need to be armed with school supplies. And students need to be armed with facts and education.

He’s also challenged the notion that the school walk out protests have disrupted education.

“We are done hiding,” Deitsch said. “We are done being full of fear.”

“This is the beginning of the end. From here, we fight.”

He, like so many other people to take the stage today, is focusing on the midterm elections and voter registration.

“Register, educate, vote.”

Thousands gathered in Houston outside the office of senator Ted Cruz for the city’s March For Our Lives protest today.

Cruz received more money from gun rights groups than any other member of Congress in the 2016 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

He has repeatedly insisted gun control is not the solution to ending gun violence and supported arming teachers.

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One of the most striking elements of the rally so far is how inclusive the speaker list has been, write Oliver Laughland and Jessica Reed in Washington.

As well as the now famous faces from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, the speakers have included young victims of gun violence from around America.

Seventeen-year-old Edna Chavez, from Manual Arts High in Los Angeles entered the stage with a raised fist and spoke powerfully about losing her brother to gun violence when she was a young child.

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“I have learned to duck from bullets before I learned to read,” she told the crowd in Washington. She asked the crowd to repeat her brother’s name, leading to deafening chants of “Ricardo” on Pennsylvania Avenue.

She added: “Arming teachers will not work. More security in our schools does not work. Zero tolerance police do not work. They make us feel like criminals. We should feel supported & empowered in our schools.”

“La lucha sigue,” she said in Spanish - meaning the fight continues.

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Trevon Bosley, a high school student from Chicago led the crowd in a chant: “Everyday shootings are everyday problems.”

The teenager lost his brother to gun violence and told the crowd: “I’m here to speak for those youth who fear they may be shot while going to the gas station, the movies, the bus stop, to church or even to and from school.”

He added: “I’m here to speak for those Chicago youth who feel their voices have been silenced for far too long. And I’m here to speak on behalf of everyone who believes a child getting shot and killed in Chicago or any other city is still a not-acceptable norm.”

Eleven-year-old Christopher Underwood has also just finished addressing the rally. Underwood is from Ocean Hill in Brooklyn. When Christopher was five he lost his brother in a shooting. He passed away on his 15th birthday.

Underwood said he lost his childhood to the shooting.

“I would like to not worry about dying. But worry about math and play basketball with my friends.”

Underwood finished the speech by quoting from Martin Luther King Jnr, who he reminded the crowd was also a victim of gun violence.

Lois Beckett interviewed Christopher two years ago:

Jaclyn Corin, a Marjory Stoneman Douglas student, just brought on stage Martin Luther King Jr’s granddaughter, Yolanda Renee King.

“I have a dream that enough is enough,” Yolanda said. “And that this should be a gun free world, period.”

She then asks the crowd to repeat back her words:

“Spread the word”

“Have you heard?”

“All across the nation”

“We are going to be a great generation.”

She lead the chant three times, encouraging the crowd to repeat her words “so the whole world can hear.”

24 Mar 201813.38 EDT

Sam Levin

The Guardian’s Sam Levin is at the March for our Lives in Oakland, California.

Jennie Drummond, a 26-year-old high school teacher, said she came to the Oakland march, because the Parkland shooting has impacted her school and is something that has left some of her students feeing afraid.

“This was organized by the youth, but it’s important that they know the adults in their lives are behind them.”

Drummond said she has been forced to think about what she would do if a gunman showed up at her school: “There’s a lot more stress in my life,” she said, adding that she has made clear to her students: “I will be between them and an intruder.”

She said she is prepared to put her life on the line for students, but that it’s a terrifying prospect. She said she would like politicians to know: “I would like to not get shot at work.”

Ruby Perez, a 17-year-old student, said she came to show solidarity with the Parkland students: “We will fight so no kids have to go through this ... Our generation, we are not going to take it anymore. We are here to stand with them.”

“The big message is we need to stop hate and violence,” she added.

Maclaine Bamberger, 17, and Ruby Baden-Lasar, 17, said they go to a sheltered private school and wanted to be sure their community was engaged in the activism.

“This is something that unites us on all fronts all over the world,” said Baden-Lasar. “It’s really about safety in schools, in the streets, in concerts, everywhere ... It’s uniting us all in a sad way.”

Bamberger said the march was just the start: “This is teaching our generation of kids to be empowered and speak up. We are seeing people our age being the most amazing activists ... It’s giving us hope.”

Christopher Underwood, whose 14-year-old brother was fatally shot in 2012, says he lost his childhood to gun violence.

“At the time, I was only five-years-old,” Christopher, 11, said.

“I turned my pain and anger into action.”

Christopher ends his speech by quoting Martin Luther King Jr: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

“Our lives matter,” Christopher added.

The Guardian profiled Christopher in 2016:

Matt Post, an 18-year-old from Montgomery County in Maryland, is speaking about the “cold inaction” of American lawmakers in regards to gun violence and the systemic issues that perpetuate it.

Post says politicians are: “sick with soullessness, but we are the cure.”

He is describing the youth as the “new, diverse face of inclusiveness” for the US.

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Eleven-year-old Naomi Wadler is next on stage.

She says she led a walk-out at her elementary school on 14 March, adding a minute to the 17 minute walk-out for each of the Parkland victims for Courtlin Arrington, a 17-year-old gun crime victim from Alabama.

Naomi said she was there to speak up for “the African-American girls whose stories don’t make the front page of every national newspaper, whose stories don’t lead on the evening news, the African-American women who are simply statistics instead of vibrant, beautiful girls full of potential.

“I’m here to say never again for those girls too. Everyone should value those girls too.”

She adds – in a reference to rightwing conspiracy theories about many of the students who have spoken up since the Parkland massacre – “People have said I’m too young to have these thoughts on my own … that I’m a tool of some nameless adult. It’s not true. My friends and I might still be 11 but we know life isn’t equal for everyone and we know what is right and wrong.”

She says she has “seven short years” until she has the right to vote.

And she closes her short and powerful speech by quoting Toni Morrison: “If there’s a book that you want to read and it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.”

My colleague Lois Beckett interviewed Naomi last week.

Former president Barack Obama has tweeted his support for the March For Our Lives.

Donald Trump, who is at his golf club in Florida, has not yet tweeted about the protests.

The White House said in a statement this morning: “We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today.”