Demonstrators on Tuesday placed 7,000 pairs of shoes on the lawn outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday as a monument to the 7,000 children killed due to gun violence, including school shootings, since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in late 2012.
Monument for Our Kids was created by Avaaz, an international group that organizes demonstrations for progressive causes. The group set out the thousands of shoes on the southeast lawn of the Capitol grounds around 8 a.m. Tuesday.
The demonstration was meant to keep pressure on Congress to enhance gun control laws. The shoes were placed on the House side of Capitol Hill and is visible from House and Senate office buildings.
All of the shoes were previously worn, but not necessarily by the people they represent. Some attendees of the demonstration did bring shoes from children and teens killed in shootings.
7000 shoes outside the U.S. Capitol rn to represent the children who lost their lives due to guns since Sandy Hook. Tom Mauser brought a pair of his son Daniel’s shoes to help w/ this installation. Daniel was 15 when he was shot and killed at Columbine. #NotOneMore @Avaaz @MoveOn pic.twitter.com/ibUXjzyQU2
— Sara Kenigsberg (@skenigsberg) March 13, 2018
Tom Mauser, the father of Daniel, who was killed in the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, brought a pair of his son’s shoes.
“I’ll travel to D.C. literally wearing my son Daniel’s shoes, the ones he wore the day he died at Columbine,” Mauser said, according to one report. “I think this kind of event with shoes offers a very powerful metaphor both for how we miss the victims who once filled those shoes, and also for how we see ourselves wanting to walk in their place, seeking change, so that others don’t have to walk this painful journey.”
Next weekend, hundreds of thousands of teenagers and adults will descend on Washington, D.C., for the March for Our Lives. The event was organized in the aftermath of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on Valentine’s Day, during which 17 people were fatally shot.
