Comedian Bill Murray warmly hailed the Parkland, Florida, teens who have launched a powerful anti-gun movement, comparing them in an NBC News op-ed to Vietnam War protesters who changed the course of history.
“It really was the students that began the end of the Vietnam War. It was the students who made all the news, and that noise started, and then the movement wouldn’t stop. I think, maybe, this noise that those students in Florida are making ... will do something of the same nature,” Murray wrote.
“The thing that’s so powerful about students is that, when you haven’t had your idealism broken yet, you’re able to speak from a place that has no confusion, where there is a clear set of values.”
But kids aren’t the only ones with idealism, he notes.
“There are idealists left over the age of 18, I’m sure of it. Idealism is a voice that’s inside of you; it’s your conscience. [It] can really deteriorate along the way ... and it can become almost dysfunctional, but it’s there. Everyone has it. Sometimes it’s just a whisper, but in some people, it’s a shout.”
A letter earlier this month from Barack and Michelle Obama to the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a mass shooter killed 17 people last month, also hailed the teenagers’ activism. “Not only have you supported and comforted each other, but you’ve helped awaken the conscience of the nation, and challenged decision-makers to make the safety of our children the country’s top priority,” they wrote.
The students are headed to Washington, D.C., for Saturday’s March for Our Lives protest for stricter gun control. They’re expected to be joined by hundreds of thousands of other students and supporters for a march down Pennsylvania Avenue. There are over 800 affiliated marches planned in the U.S. and abroad.