Sometime during the spring of my sophomore year in high school, my fellow sophomore class officers and I decided to petition our leadership class into planning and carrying out a sleep-in protest to Bush’s war. We were very gun-ho about this exciting and powerful message we wanted to express. We wanted to tell our school, our parents, our community that we did not support the war in any way. We had plans to hold a free speech platform in which anyone could speak about the war. We wanted to invite the media to help spread our message. We wanted anyone and everyone to come participate in the sleep-in. The first step we took was trying to gain support from our school teachers and administrators. We knew that by adding the involvement and support of authority our ideas would be more valued and respected. We found unwilling teachers and an unrelenting administration.
Attempts to corral authority support only yielded warnings about the risks our protests held. My parents pleaded with me to not risk my potential for earning college scholarships and offers by getting into trouble. We could not find a single teacher willing to put his or her job on the line to protest the war. Our administration threatened me and my peers with suspension of expulsion if we carried out this sleep in. My school was afraid to ruffle any feathers within what I viewed as a liberal city.
Being fourteen and very influenced by my authority figures, I personally decided to abandon our plan, and eventually everyone else followed suit. We were too afraid to lose what we had worked for thus far in our lives. We were still equally as opposed to the war, but no one knew.
We elected to hold a picket protest on a Saturday afternoon rather than hold a sleep in with speeches and interviews, and a solid media presence. We had a large turnout with at least two hundred students and family members, most of whom held signs expressing their opposition to the war. We stood at a major intersection for two hours yelling and picketing. That night we reflected on the day, feeling little to no accomplishment. We were so passionate, so determined to influence the government and scream to the world that we were adamantly opposed to war, but we had no idea how to do so without risking too much. Cars drove by and saw our signs and heard our yells, but did they really hear us? It sure did not seem like it. We knew high risk protsts sparked strong reactions, and our riskless protest yielded no reaction.
Generations of the past often overcame their fear of taking risks and held sit-ins, seized buildings, etc. The Johnson Hall sit-it at the University of Oregon exemplifies this.
Image: sophomore class officers, '03
Source: Sheldon High School yearbook
Attempts to corral authority support only yielded warnings about the risks our protests held. My parents pleaded with me to not risk my potential for earning college scholarships and offers by getting into trouble. We could not find a single teacher willing to put his or her job on the line to protest the war. Our administration threatened me and my peers with suspension of expulsion if we carried out this sleep in. My school was afraid to ruffle any feathers within what I viewed as a liberal city.
Being fourteen and very influenced by my authority figures, I personally decided to abandon our plan, and eventually everyone else followed suit. We were too afraid to lose what we had worked for thus far in our lives. We were still equally as opposed to the war, but no one knew.
We elected to hold a picket protest on a Saturday afternoon rather than hold a sleep in with speeches and interviews, and a solid media presence. We had a large turnout with at least two hundred students and family members, most of whom held signs expressing their opposition to the war. We stood at a major intersection for two hours yelling and picketing. That night we reflected on the day, feeling little to no accomplishment. We were so passionate, so determined to influence the government and scream to the world that we were adamantly opposed to war, but we had no idea how to do so without risking too much. Cars drove by and saw our signs and heard our yells, but did they really hear us? It sure did not seem like it. We knew high risk protsts sparked strong reactions, and our riskless protest yielded no reaction.
Generations of the past often overcame their fear of taking risks and held sit-ins, seized buildings, etc. The Johnson Hall sit-it at the University of Oregon exemplifies this.
Image: sophomore class officers, '03
Source: Sheldon High School yearbook
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