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\nWhen 17 students and teachers were murdered on what should have been a peaceful school day, students across the US took to the streets to demand change. The outpouring of protests in the wake of the tragic mass-shooting in Parkland, Florida earlier this year is an important reminder that students can challenge the status quo.<\/p>\n
The #NeverAgain movement, led by high-school and college students, is asking for gun reform in the US to improve safety in schools. It is a reasonable demand, and one that\u00a0research<\/a>\u00a0has shown lowers mass shootings fatalities.<\/p>\n The current attempts to change the US status quo on gun ownership pose a rewriting of the country\u2019s constitution. Rewriting a constitution is no easy task, but students in the US have a long history of protesting the status quo to instil reform. Student activism is not limited to the US either \u2013 it was pivotal to important events such as the\u00a0Australian Freedom Rides<\/a>\u00a0and the ending of apartheid in South Africa.<\/p>\n The Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit-Ins in early 1960 were led by four students from the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College. Ezell Blair Jr., Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond peacefully\u00a0protested against Woolworth\u2019s Department Store<\/a>\u00a0policy of serving only whites at lunch counters throughout the South.<\/p>\n The Greensboro Sit-ins in the Woolworth Department Store Lunch Counter, one of hundreds organised by North Carolina college students. Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n Their actions spurred a further 300 or so students to join them over the next few months, resulting in Woolworths officially desegregating all the lunch counters. The students endured all kinds of humiliating acts, from taunts to being covered in food and drink by disgruntled patrons.<\/p>\n In 1964,\u00a0the Civil Rights Act<\/a>\u00a0was introduced, making segregation in public places illegal.<\/p>\n The bus outside of the Hotel Bogabilla in February 1965, to draw attention to the terrible living conditions endured by many Indigenous students. State Library of New South Wales\/Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n A year later, in February of 1965, several University of Sydney students\u00a0organised a bus tour of New South Wales towns<\/a>. Led by Charles Perkins, an Arrente man from Alice Springs, the students wanted to draw attention to the terrible living conditions many Aboriginal residents endured. The students also offered their encouragement and support to the Aboriginal communities, hoping it would help close the gap between white and Aboriginal living conditions.<\/p>\n Not all student protests have been non-violent. South African students\u2019 long (although sometimes violent) history of protests to change the very constitution are a useful example.<\/p>\n This year marks the 70th anniversary since apartheid was introduced in South Africa, officially disenfranchising black Africans and institutionalising a racist method of privileging white South Africans in every aspect of life. Black South African students successfully enacted real change in government policy.<\/p>\n The Soweto school students began marching peacefully on June 16, 1976. They rallied in their thousands near Johannesburg\u00a0against the mandate that all teaching had to be done in Afrikaans<\/a>, amongst other things.<\/p>\n It was the tipping point in a long line of education reforms introduced by the apartheid government that disadvantaged African youth. Sadly, the protest was met with a brutal police presence.<\/p>\nProtests against racial segregation in the US<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Student protests in NSW<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Apartheid-era student protests<\/strong><\/h4>\n