Many people don’t see the point of school walkouts. They think that they’re just a way for lazy teens to just walk out of school. Truth be told, that is sometimes the case for some teens, but not for all. Not in the case of Oakwood and certainly not in this current political climate.

According to Imogen Groome of The Sun, “As of March 2018, there have been eight school shootings this year in which a gun was discharged and victims were either injured or killed.” Eight different schools and communities had to go through this terrible tragedy. It’s not a surprise that students all around the U.S. want to make a change.

Students no longer feel safe in schools and fear what their peers are thinking and doing. Due to the outrage and the call for change, students organized a national walkout on April 20. This wasn’t the first national walkout made this year. Students all around the U.S. walked out of school on March 14 for 17 minutes to honor the 17 students who died at Parkland on Feb. 14 as well. Parkland was a turning point for many people and for them enough was enough.

Many parents and adults feel like students are just using this as an excuse to walk out of schools but it’s so much more than that. The walkout symbolizes not only the want for change but the need for change. Students around the world are tired of waiting for adults to do something and decided to take matters into their own hands.

Walkouts have been used all throughout history for many different purposes. Whether it was to stop the lowering of wages for women or to stop the discrimination of Chicanos and African Americans at schools, they all accomplished something. When adults and other students say that walking out won’t make a difference, they couldn’t be more wrong.

The biggest and the most effective student walk out was in 1968 called the East L.A. Walkouts or Chicano Blowouts. Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles, California walked out of school to protest against the lack of quality in there education and the racism they received.

“Inequalities in education led to the 1968 East Los Angeles Walkouts, also known as the ‘Blowouts’, which displayed the largest mobilization of Chicano youth leaders in Los Angeles history,” Kelly Simpson, reporter at KCET said.

Thousands of Mexican-Americans gathered as one and took a stand for their equality in their education. Although not all of their original demands were met, they did manage to increase the level of acceptance of chicanos to colleges as well as the number of Mexican-American teachers being hired along with better education in LAUSD schools.

“The school board agreed outright to two of the demands — more bilingual personnel and smaller classes,” Louis Sahagun, reporter at the LA Times said.

They worked together as a community to make a difference and succeeded. Many told them they couldn’t do it but they believed in themselves and did what they thought was right. These accomplishments directly contradict those people that say that the walkouts don’t mean anything and won’t accomplish anything.     

The recent walkouts showed the world that we as students would no longer stay quiet about the increase in violence in our schools. It shows the world that we will stand together and try and make a change. Just like those kids in LA all those years ago.