February 21, 2018

Gut-Wrenching Parkland Memorials Are Showing Up All Over the Country

Florida’s latest tragedy is resounding from coast to coast.

A woman lays flowers at a student memorial outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Orit Ben-Ezzer via ZUMA Wire

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After the slaughter in Parkland, Florida, last week, an enormous memorial was set up outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High to mourn the 17 people killed at the school. But as survivors began speaking out—planning a series of demonstrations next month and a national walkout in April—sympathetic mourners around the nation have created makeshift memorials of their own.

In a 1997 paper, Texas professor C. Allen Haney called spontaneous memorials an “emerging American mourning ritual,” a way to mark a place as sacred. Yet that ritual is evolving as memorials are erected in solidarity. We saw it when people commemorated 9/11, the 2015 Paris attacks, and the attacks on Brussels in 2016. Here, now, are some of the far-flung places where people have stepped up to commemorate the victims of Florida’s latest mass shooting.

San Francisco

https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/966072659669733376

Emerald Isle, North Carolina

Orlando, Florida

North Montgomery, Indiana

https://twitter.com/NMHS_FACS/status/965985256078798848

Bettendorf, Iowa

New York City

One of the student victims, 14-year-old Jaime Guttenberg, was a “passionate dancer” who loved the color orange, as Broward County’s Sun-Sentinel reports. To honor her life, dancers across the country—in professional companies, at competitions, and in class—wore orange ribbons while they performed.

Menifee, California

Adrian, Michigan

Upper Montclair, New Jersey

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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