PSL Presidential Candidate Peta Lindsay salutes
student walkouts demanding justice for Trayvon Martin

Above: Peta Lindsay co-chairs Million Hoodie March and Rally in Los Angeles. Below: School Without Walls walkout for Trayvon Martin.

Protesters have been pouring into the streets in response to the racist killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, and are now being joined by thousands of students staging school walkouts to demand justice for Trayvon and to fight against racism. According to ABC News, students walked out from around 50 schools in Florida alone late last week.

PSL Presidential Candidate Peta Lindsay released the statement below saluting the students from School Without Walls, her former high school in Washington, D.C. Students from School Without Walls staged a walkout on March 27, joining many others who are taking a stand for justice around the country.

Statement from PSL Presidential Candidate Peta Lindsay

As an alumnus of the School Without Walls, class of 2002, I was so very proud to see that Walls students organized a walkout and march demanding justice for Trayvon Martin, joining in struggle with so many other youth across the United States.

The racist murder of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy; the fact that his killer still walks free is a grave injustice. But the demonstrations that have taken place all across the country in the last week show that out of these tragic circumstances a new movement for justice, for equality and against racism has begun.

The history of the United States is a history of struggle. From the movement for labor rights, to women’s rights, to the mass movement for African American Civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s, the organized struggle of the people has always been the force behind progressive change, not the politicians.

It is often forgotten that most of these vibrant and powerful movements were led and carried out by very young people. High school students, college students, young workers and the unemployed were on the front lines of those struggles in the streets, and it was their hard work and their commitment to justice that moved us all forward toward a better society.

They may try to tell you to wait until you are 18 years old to vote. They may tell you to get a good job at an NGO, or write a letter to your Congressman and that’s how you could make change. I’m telling you to keep doing what you’re doing. Organize, resist, struggle and make history.

Your demonstration was one important step in a greater movement for justice and equality, which is growing every day. After decades of brutal and unjust war, pervasive racism, environmental destruction and devastating economic inequality, the people of the United States are ready for real change and looking for ways to make it happen.

Thanks to the students at School Without Walls and so many others for holding these demonstrations, for advancing the struggle and for showing us all the way forward.

Peta Lindsay
2012 PSL Presidential Candidate

Read Peta Lindsay’s statement on the racist killing of Trayvon Martin.