This past Tuesday, January 20th, Worthington Kilbourne students participated in a peaceful walkout across four periods to protest the actions of ICE in our community and across our country.
Students made signs, chanted, and found community with one another as they spent their off periods and class time outside in the cold to stand up for their fellow students, their neighbors, their friends, and their fellow Americans who are being targeted and brutally mistreated by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Jessica Pugh, a Kilbourne senior, worked with the Party for Socialism and Liberation out of Columbus(PSLColumbus), and ICEoutCbus to organize and plan the walk out. Pugh’s job was to spread the word and to encourage others to do so as well.
We asked Pugh why she felt compelled to get involved, she told us, “I felt responsible to organize the walkout because we have so much privilege in Worthington and we need to use it correctly. It would be very easy for all of us to be ignorant to the news of ICE agents killing and violently detaining people daily because we are not among the targeted demographic.”
On January 19th students across central Ohio were theorizing about having a “cold day” on the 20th, which is when the day’s temperatures are so freezing that it’s considered an endangerment for students who have to walk to or from school, so they call school off for the whole day. So when school was not called off on the 20th, students were apprehensive about participating in the walkout due to the temperatures.
Despite the freezing temperatures and the potential for punishment when missing class, Kilbourne students across grades, ethnicities, backgrounds, and interests banded together starting around 11:30, and they began their walkout.
PSL had provided Pugh with some chants and an outline with some helpful tips to run a walkout, so as soon as a large enough crowd amassed, chants began and Worthington Kilbourne began making their stand against ICE.
The Ravine interviewed a few of the Kilbourne students, some of which chose to remain anonymous out of fear for their and their families well-being, about why they felt the walkout was important and about why the issue of ICE is important to them.
One senior told us, “As a daughter of an immigrant, I think that it’s really unfair to ignore the humanity of a person just because they came from a different place”, she later elaborated, saying, “That’s not really what America was built up or what it should stand for at all.”
Many of their peers echoed similar sentiments, with the consensus across the board from students being that the goal of the protest was not only to condemn the actions of ICE and the Trump Administration, but also to lift up the Hispanic members of the Worthington community to let them know that people are standing with and for them.
Students flowed in and out of the protest across all four periods of the day, sometimes marching, sometimes huddling to shield the cold, chanting together, and spending the better part of their school dedicated to fighting for justice for their friends and neighbors.
When we asked Pugh what she hoped the protest’s impact would be, she said, “I hoped that the walk out would generate discussion and teach everyone at Kilbourne that they do have an influence, whether they use it positively or negatively is up to them. I also hoped to show our community that we will not be complacent against injustice.”
It’s more than safe to say that the walkout did just that. Looking around the protest was filled with pictures of hope amongst the darkness that students are growing up surrounded by today. Students could be seen with tears in their eyes, touched and pride-filled at the sight of their peers caring enough for their rights and humanity to fight for them. Cars could be heard honking in support as adults in the community saw Worthington’s future standing for the whole community to have the ability to live peacefully and equally.
The most moving sight of all was walking in and out of the school building during the protest, where you were able to see 40 of your peers huddled together, breath rising, realizing the importance of using their best tool to create real change: community. High school students are notoriously divided, into cliques or friend groups or whatever label is socially appropriate at the time. The beauty of Kilbourne’s walkout was the community it highlighted.
Kilbourne takes care of its own, whether it is the teachers encouraging us to use our rights, administration standing in the cold to make sure we were physically safe, parents dropping off hand warmers and snacks, or students, friends and not, sharing in the effort to fight for the rights they believe should be afforded to every human being.
Martin Luther King Jr said, “Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.”
On January 20th, the peace-lovers at Kilbourne did exactly that. They organized, not out of convenience or comfort, but out of necessity. As Kilbourne students chose community over complacency and protest over silence, they proved that real change can only begin when people decide to stand together. For that reason, for what it shows about our future, I couldn’t be prouder to be a wolf.
