Earlier this week, hundreds of students across Spokane walked out of class in protest of Immigration and Customs Enforcements (ICE) agents’ mistreatment of immigrants and the killing of Renee Nicole Good, who was shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis.
The organizing group — Spokane Students for Human Decency (SSHD) — which formed just over a week ago in response to the news of Good’s death, says that over 1,200 students participated in coordinated walkouts across six schools:
- Lewis and Clark High School (LCHS)
- North Central High School
- Ferris High School
- Saint George’s School
- Mt. Spokane High School
- Gonzaga Preparatory Academy*
Reporter Erin Sellers and I went to LCHS, the school where the walkout idea originated, to witness hundreds of students participate. As we walked down the sidewalk and recorded audio of students chanting, I felt hope for our community — because even with the daily onslaught of horrible news, these teenagers are fighting for a better future for us all.
Here’s what I saw:
They’re building community, in and out of the school
Ava Swigart, a senior at LCHS, said the protest idea was born just five days earlier at a lunch table after she and other students saw the headlines emerging from Minneapolis. She looped in other LCHS students, and the group quickly grew, with organizing spreading across multiple schools in the city…