The Class Of 1946-2018

This year saw two of the country’s worst school shootings.

Yet in the midterms the subject is often missing.

A half-century of survivors bear witness.

- Jared Soule & Amelia Schonbek

AMERICANS HAVE SHORT MEMORIES. But here we are in an election year. The same year in which a former student murdered 17 of his classmates in Parkland, Florida—and another student killed ten in Texas. In which at least 75 other shootings in schools barely made the news and then slipped right out of it (which often happens when victims are people of color). ¶ It’s stunning to think that these shootings—these attacks on children—aren’t being talked about constantly. ¶ One of the first recorded American school shootings took place in 1840. But the first high-school shooting that truly lodged itself in our consciousness was Columbine, in 1999, when two students wearing trench coats fatally shot 13 of their classmates. It took 45 minutes for a swat team to go in. As the AP would note, those officers “had never trained for what they found: No hostages. No demands. Just killing.” Now students have so many drills that some Parkland victims thought, This must be fake. ¶ There have been more mass school-shooting deaths in the past 18 years than in all of the 20th century. The long list of casualties includes a classroom full of first-graders, an event that shocked the nation—but not enough. Deadlier weapons have become more available, bullets can be ordered online. ¶ So why don’t we talk about this all the time? Partly because it scares us. And partly because the problem can seem so intractable, even as polls show majority support for measures that could curb the violence. ¶ In the midst of this amnesia, we wanted to conduct an exercise in remembrance, seeking out the survivors of school shootings from as far back as we could find them. What, we wondered, could their memories teach us about our inattention? The people whose bodies—in many cases—won’t let them forget.

2/14/2018

MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS HIGH SCHOOL