“Oh, my God.” These were the words of one high school student who walked behind us as we made our way into the Tenleytown–AU Metro Station. Her exclamation came after hundreds of Jackson-Reed students poured into the subway from the opposite entrance.
On Friday, students from 15 schools across D.C. held a walkout to protest the Trump administration and the recent violence by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE). Alongside hundreds of other students, we took the Red Line to the Farragut North Metro Station before walking to the Lincoln Memorial, where we spoke to protesters, Park Police and onlookers.
Jackson-Reed junior Nati Pinilla began organizing the walkout in January. We had the chance to speak to Pinilla at Farragut North, where she was directing crowds to the exit through her megaphone.
“We’re the students in our nation’s capital,” Pinilla shouted over the noise of the protestors. “We have direct witness to see what’s happening in Congress and in our government. Even though we’re not a state, we still have a voice, and I want to prove that.”
The atmosphere was electric as students emerged from Farragut North station and quickly began to chant, “Fuck ICE!” But when students became the most enthusiastic—when their shouts became the loudest, and their cheers the most unified—was when an onlooker raised their fist in support or a car honked in approval.
On our walk to the Lincoln Memorial, a woman in her car simply stopped in the middle of the street for over a minute to shout her support, even though she had a green light; a man on the side of the sidewalk stopped to high five every student who passed by. These small moments of solidarity caused uproars among the crowd.
A few blocks away from the Washington Monument, three men stood across the street from the crowd of students. Two donned MAGA hats, while one was dressed in what appeared to be an American-flag wrestler suit with a Lucha Libre mask.
The counter-protestors’ jeers and chants could not be heard over the roar of the students, but many high-schoolers noticed the men and began booing. One student crossed the street and approached one of the men, and the two began shouting back and forth. At one point, the student swatted at the man with her sign—the only violent moment we saw during the protest.
The protest officially began at 3 p.m. As students arrived, organizers from each school—each wearing a neon pink shirt—stood at the top of the Lincoln Memorial’s steps and led call-and-response chants. In one such chant, a student organizer asked, “Who do we hate?” The protesters screamed back, “Trump!” Other chants condemned ICE’s violence and called for the release of the Epstein files.
A Show of Unity
Lucia Kumar had a personal reason to attend the walkout. One of just three Maret eighth-graders to protest, she said she wanted to go because she has “a lot of family that’s been taken [by ICE].” Kumar declined to share which members of her family ICE had taken.
Kumar said her mom works for an organization called Voto Latino, which provides resources and information to prospective Latino voters.
“There’s a lot of bad stuff going on right now, and people really need to speak out,” Kumar said. “If the youth is coming out and talking about it, then maybe the adults will finally understand.”
We spoke to GDS sophomore Asher Baer about 30 minutes into the protest. Baer said he could hardly believe how many students showed up. “It’s a great show of unity for basically everybody in the District to be out here for one cause,” he said. “You hope that the people over at Capitol Hill are at least paying attention to what’s happening on their doorstep. This is about as close as we can get; if they can’t take this messaging, then there’s really no hope for them.”
That unity didn’t only apply to teenagers.
While parents sometimes bring their children to protests, it’s not often that a young child will beg their parents to go to one. But on Friday, we met Alice Deal Middle School sixth-grader Amelia Finch, who brought her mom, Lori Finch, to the walkout.
Amelia said she became concerned about ICE “when all this bad stuff started to happen and Trump got into office.”
“She’s very passionate about ICE and how terrible it is,” Lori said of her daughter. “This was important for her because she wanted to experience a rally.”
Amelia had wanted to go to the protest so badly, Lori said, that she decided to miss school.
But the walkout held special significance for both Amelia and Lori: It was the first time either of them had attended a protest.
The School Response
GDS junior Eva Vinik said she felt a personal responsibility to attend the walkout. “As someone who has that ability to go to school without the fear of being kidnapped, I think that it’s only right that I stand up for those who don’t have that privilege,” she said.
On Tuesday, Feb. 24, High School Principal Chris Levy sent an email to all high school students and parents about the walkout.
“Whether our students participate or not, we respect their choice,” Levy wrote. Levy encouraged parents to develop safety plans with their children if their children decided to attend the protest and said that classes would run as normal, leaving students responsible for making up any missed work.
Vinik said she was unsurprised that the school did not punish students who participated in the walkout. “If you look at GDS’ mission statement, it’s their responsibility to create a space where students are free to stand up for what they believe in,” Vinik said. “It’s one thing to learn about these issues in classes, but what GDS really prepares you for so well is the strength and freedom and also courage to apply what you’ve learned in the real world.”
“What’s happening in this country right now, especially in terms of immigration,” protest co-organizer and GDS junior Willa Wible said, “has just gotten completely out of hand.” Wible spoke about the killings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti as examples of ICE’s violence.
“We have to show that students actually do care, and because we’re in this location, that gives us all the more reason to show up in one of the most iconic places you could perform a protest in the United States,” Wible said.
Protest co-organizer and GDS junior Alicia Kim said the student organizers from School Without Walls, juniors Nadia Kallmer and Yeselyn Iraheta, applied for a protest permit from the National Park Service. During the protest, Park Ranger Natalie Suding told us one permit ranger—a park professional responsible for managing permits for events on public land—attended the walkout to ensure the protection of students’ First Amendment rights.
According to Kim, administrators at St. John’s College High School (SJC) threatened to suspend students who took part in the walkout. On Feb. 19, the SJC walkout Instagram page—@fightisnotoveryet_sjc—posted an image with the text, “The administration is actively trying to stop SJC students from participating in this walkout.”
SJC student organizer and account manager Tessa Majchrzak did not respond to a request for comment.
Prince William County Public Schools recently suspended 323 students for skipping school to attend an ICE rally. Suspensions like these have become more common in recent months: On Feb. 18, the Mustang Public School district in Oklahoma gave 122 students in-school suspensions after they participated in an ICE walkout.
Two Sides to the Same Coin
Inside the Memorial, we met two men from central Florida—Richard Feinberg and Julio Perez. They told us they flew in for Saturday’s March 4 Democracy rally and were on a walk from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial when they saw protesters marching along the Reflecting Pool.
“I think the message is awesome,” Feinberg said to us. “What he [Trump] is doing is unconstitutional and illegal, and obviously you children have more spine than the Republicans in our Congress.”
Feinberg said that despite his own interest in politics, he struggles to get his children—who are in their 30s and 40s—involved.
“I just think it’s apathy,” Feinberg said about people who refuse to care about politics. “It’s a generation or generations that have grown up with a lot given to them, and they take what they have for granted. They don’t realize that freedom ain’t free.”
Feinberg will turn 70 this year. He said he became passionate about politics and started protesting towards the end of the Vietnam War, which ended when he was 18 or 19 years old.
A first-generation American, Perez said he began going to rallies after he heard Trump speak at the 2016 Republican National Convention. “The way that he spoke just made the hair on the back of my neck stand up,” Perez said. “I’d heard of this fascist guy in Germany talking the same way, and that’s what made me get involved.”
Down by the base of the Memorial, one student’s sign read, “The Holocaust started with mass deportation.”
Since 2016, Perez said he’s “been watching America just decline and decline and decline.” Perez said the topics he cares most about—women’s rights, affirmative action and diversity, equity and inclusion—aren’t getting enough attention.
“A lot of people tell me to be careful because of ICE,” Perez said. But he refuses to stop. “I believe in these rights; I believe in this—in what I’ve seen. I hate to see it go away.”
Although Feinberg and Perez continue to attend protests, Feinberg said his generation can only do so much. “Our time is kind of done,” he told us. “It’s y’all’s country, and you need to fight for it.”
To the left of the protestors at the Lincoln Memorial stood members of the Armed Forces—men and women who fight for the country in a far more literal sense. They were holding a promotion ceremony for one of their fellow soldiers, and the spectators huddled together in front of an American flag and a U.S. Navy flag to share in the special moment. But it was sometimes difficult to hear the words of the speaking colonel, who had to raise his voice over the nearby shouts of the protestors.