Thousands of North Texas students will march for their lives to protest gun violence

Thousands of student activists from North Texas will join forces Saturday with young survivors of a school shooting in Florida to push for better protections against gun violence at schools.

The March For Our Lives movement emerged after the mass shooting — which left 17 people dead — at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

The main march in Washington, D.C., is set for noon Saturday and is expected to draw hundreds of thousands. More than 800 events, called sibling marches and rallies, are scheduled across the nation and in Montreal and London.

Fort Worth's' march is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. at the Tarrant County Courthouse in downtown. The Dallas march starts at 1 p.m. at Dallas City Hall.

A countdown on social media marks the minutes until the marches begin across the nation.

National groups, Every Town for Gun Safety and Giffords: Courage To Fight Gun Violence, are helping support the marches and rallies.

Students from Northwest, Southlake Carroll, Flower Mound and Fort Worth schools are among those participating at the march in downtown Fort Worth. Several said they are carpooling from their suburban communities to downtown.

Organizers of the march in Fort Worth said their permit lists a crowd estimate of 10,000. The March For Our Lives Fort Worth Facebook lists more than 1,300 people who plan to attend. Fort Worth school board members Anael Luebanos and Ann Sutherland said they plan to attend the march.

Sutherland urged people via Facebook to participate in the event. She said local school leaders are working to heed the concerns raised by student activists, but the issue of gun violence must be largely addressed by lawmakers.

"Where is the hammer?" Sutherland said. "How are we going to convince lawmakers to take action?"

Before the march begins the Democratic Party will stage precinct conventions Saturday starting at 9 a.,m. at the Tarrant County College South Campus, 5301 Campus Drive in Fort Worth. Organizers of the conventions say march participants can attend both events.

They encourage potential delegates to show up at the precinct conventions and register, then go attend the march. When that's over, they back can come and catch up with the conventions, said Deborah Peoples, who heads the Tarrant County Democratic Party.

Staff writer Anna Tinsley contributed to this report, which includes information from the Star-Telegram archives.

This story was originally published March 22, 2018 at 10:06 AM with the headline "Thousands of North Texas students will march for their lives to protest gun violence."