Ruth Bang is a freshman at Syracuse University. In February, 2018, the worst high school mass shooting happened in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where she graduated a year before. Her sister was at a middle school only a block away from the site.
March, 2018, one month after the shooting, Ruth joined her friends from MSD and over 800,000 other people at the March for Our Lives in Washington D.C demanding stricter gun control. “I think that was empowering, more than anything,” Ruth said afterwards.
The night before, Ruth and her best friends from high school stayed up until 4 a.m. to prepare the signs in their hotel room. They came from colleges all over the east coast and midwest of America.
They were wearing their high school shirts. “‘Once an Eagle, always an Eagle’ has literally never been any more true until this happened,” said Ruth's friend.
Felipe Linares (center) suggested something they could wear the next day to the march. The Parkland community came toghether closer than ever before in light of the tragedy.
Ruth pinned the buttons representing Stoneman Douglas' spirit to a jean jacket that was her roommate's gift. Though people in Syracuse showed sympathy, Ruth felt most comfortable confiding in with her friends from home who share and understand what she goes through. “The people we trusted most with what we felt, and who would understand it most, is who we turned to.”