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“IT’S IMPORTANT that we have these moments of silence to remember these individuals, but I think it’s just as important to speak up,” said David Hogg at a . “We have been silent for too long as a nation; we’ve allowed these things to continue for too long.” Hogg was talking about remembering the 17 people who were shot to death by a 19-year-old at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in February. But he was also talking about the need to honor the victims’ memories by doing more than holding a respectful moment of silence.

Hogg and five others—Matt and Ryan Deitsch, Emma Gonzalez, Cameron Kasky, and Alex Wind—are among a group of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students and alumni at the forefront of a growing national movement calling for gun law reform. In March, they visited Harvard just days before they led a major march for gun control in which hundreds of thousands of students across the country participated, in Washington and in hundreds of other locations across the country.

Before the Forum event at which they spoke, the students met with President Drew Faust and students and faculty from around Harvard. They came to listen and to absorb as well as to speak. Kasky explained how he reacted after he began seeing the predictable reactions to the tragedy in the media and on social media. “I was listening to the news, and I was looking at my phone and seeing what was going on, and I started to realize I’ve seen this before,” he said. “What happens is we get two weeks in the news, we get a bundle of thoughts and prayers, everybody sends flowers, and then it’s over. ... We said no, you’re not controlling our narrative, you are not telling our story.”

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