Two black high-school juniors – one in North County and one in Parkland, Florida – kept sharing similar views on Twitter.
So they exchanged numbers.
Both had become vocal that the #NeverAgain movement to end gun violence needed to be more inclusive of all voices – especially the black youth whose cries for change have long been met with silence. After the school massacre in Parkland, Florida, the surviving students began a viral movement on social media to pressure elected officials to pass stronger gun legislation.
Kenidra Woods, a Riverview Gardens High School junior in North County, helped organize a school walkout to stand in solidarity with the students from Majory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 students and teachers were murdered in a school shooting on Feb. 14. The St. Louis action made national news when the students were barred from returning to class. Mike Brown Jr. was shot and killed by a police officer within five miles of the Riverview Gardens School District’s boundaries in 2014.
Kyrah Simon, a junior at Majory Stoneman Douglas, was not in the same building where the shooting happened but one of her close friends was killed. Parkland, Florida is considered one of the “safest” cities in the country, and Simon tweeted that she wanted to talk with teens who experienced gun violence more regularly than she had.
The St. Louis American watched the two connect on Twitter and offered to be a platform for their exchange. In a three-way call on March 6, the American sat back and let the young women interview each other for about an hour and a half – with our line on mute.
The discussion has been edited for length.
Kyrah: What is it like in St. Louis? I know nothing about anything that isn’t Florida.
Kenidra: I want to give you a little back story. Back in 2014, Antonio Martin, he was a close friend of my brother’s, he got shot in the hands of the police. The stuff that happens here, I just hear about shootings all the time. But there’s good stuff that happens too. People mainly come here for the Arch.
Kyrah: Is it a big city?
Kenidra: Yea, when you go downtown. But I live in the county. It’s way lit up downtown, but nothing compared to New York. That’s where I would prefer people to go because I don’t want them to see the downfalls of St. Louis. I wouldn’t want them to go where I would go myself, you know.
Kyrah: Are the schools good?
Kenidra: Honestly, my school Riverview Gardens, when need improvement. Just this year I found out we’ve never had intruder drills at my school. Our campus is open. I don’t feel safe. The security guards do the best they can, but people can just walk right onto campus.
Kyrah: That’s what happened at my school. I think the shooter took an Uber to my school and just walked in. I thought our security was decent.
Kenidra: I have so many questions. How did he manage to get in with an AR-15?
Kyrah: I heard he came in with a duffle bag.
Kenidra: How do you feel going to school? You all are so strong for going back to school.
Kyrah: It’s weird. People are trying to make it go back to normal. We don’t go back in the building where it happened. I think they are going to wreck it and make it into a memorial. They relocated the classes that were in there. They are trying to get us back into doing school work.
Kenidra: If I may ask, where were you at during the shooting? Where you in the same building?
Kyrah: No, I was on the complete other side of the school.
Kenidra: Wow, you all are so strong. I can’t even express that enough. I was happy that you and me connected because I just feel like some Parkland students weren’t getting their voices heard. I feel like us as black students, and I don’t even want it to be about race. We face gun violence a lot. It’s more prevalent in our community. It’s like, what about us? I know Parkland is primarily a white school.
Kyrah: It is.
Kenidra: It’s a lot of students’ voices that aren’t being heard. I wish the people with a larger platform could kinda like help.
Kyrah: When you think of certain cities that you attribute with gun violence, you hear that someone got shot, like Chicago, you’re not surprised. I think that’s so terrible. Same thing with school shootings. I feel like if it wasn’t in my city, it wouldn’t have hit me as hard because we are so used to hearing “17 dead” or “20 dead.” Like with Pulse (a nightclub in Orlando where 49 people were killed in 2016), we are so used to hear about mass shootings. You are sad about it for a few weeks, and then it fades into the next story.
Kenidra: Exactly. So you’re saying you were surprised?
Kyrah: Our city was supposed to be the safest city in Florida. It is so crazy. I have a friend who was killed and friends who are in the hospital.
Kenidra: Just recently, we had an active shooter around our school, and we had to get on lockdown. We had to get away from the windows because they didn’t know where the shooter was. I’m so thankful to God for the fast response. Even though I didn’t go through what you all had to go through, oh my God. Just watching the news, reading articles, I feel like I’m living it myself. You see everything circling over Twitter, over the Internet. You just feel it so deeply, even though it’s not you going through it. It’s like, man that could be me. I sent a text to mom, saying “Mom, I love you.” That’s sad I had to do that, but they kept coming on the intercom, like, “everyone tuck and get undercover.”
Kyrah: When was the lockdown?
Kenidra: It was Thursday. Right after my mom dropped me off at school.
It’s crazy. I think there have been like three school shootings since Parkland.
Kenidra: People aren’t taking accountability. They say, ‘Oh, well Nicholas Cruz was mentally ill.’ Me personally, I’m mentally ill. I cut myself; I’m a self-harm addict. I’ve been clean for some months, but me personally, I went through a lot of traumatic things in my life. Sexual abuse, just abuse, but I didn’t think about killing people for my issues.
Kyrah: They are trying to just blame it on people who are mentally ill. And I feel like that’s a cop out to keep from addressing the fact that the guns are the real issue. Now when they do background checks, if you’ve been institutionalized then you can’t access guns. Not everyone who has a mental illness takes the initiative to get help.
Kenidra: I’ve been in and out of psych wards more times than I can’t count on my hands and toes. I would never put a gun in my hands. They put us in a category with mass murders. Everyone who does it isn’t mentally ill. I feel like he was trigger happy. Take accountability. We all go through things in our lives. You took 17 innocent lives and wounded so many people. The guns are the problem.
Kyrah: I heard there were 78 bullets on the first floor. How could he be able to do that with a weapon like an AR-15? You can’t do that with a knife. You can’t do that with a handgun.
Kenidra: Overall, do you feel like students getting support?
Kyrah: The first day back we had a bunch of social workers and therapy dogs. There have been opportunities to get grief counseling. They’ve been trying really hard to cater to everyone. This small bakery made 30,000 cupcakes and set it to our school. Teachers are trying to ease us back in. We’ve been playing like Uno.
Kenidra: That is good. I’m so proud of everything that people are doing for your all’s school. You have a lot of support.
Kyrah: We have a lot of support. We have banners from all over the country. It’s really amazing how much love there is and support. And it helps.
Kenidra: I bet it does. People died. You should get all the support you all can get and that’s so important. People do care. People like me, I really care. I just want to make sure everybody’s voice is being heard. Everyone survived for a reason. It’s still a chance to change the world and make a difference.
Kyrah: Exactly, by staying united, we are able to make a big difference. So, with the vision, we should ask students all over the nation too so we can make a change.
I so wish I could connect with students in Baltimore, Chicago. That is so important to me.
Kyrah: Those are important voices that don’t really get a platform.
Kenidra: Exactly, that’s why I continue to say, it’s so important that everyone is heard. I feel the way our voices will be heard is if we vote. I want to feel more inclusive. I don’t want to take away the spotlight from the Parkland students in no way. It’s just like, I do want to feel as important too. At the same time, I wanted to go to D.C., but I can’t make it because I have a show the next day. The shooter messed with the wrong school, and they are speaking up and I’m so proud of them. But me personally, I would like to feel more inclusive.
Kyrah: Yea, make it more like a national-scale thing were everyone can have a piece of it.
Kenidra: David Hogg and Emma are the top people, and I love them. And I feel that in a way that they should give a voice to their peers too.
Kyrah: Give everyone a chance to speak out.
Kenidra: I want to feel support as much as I want people to feel supported.
Kenidra published a book “Heart of Hope” and has a blog that focuses on spreading awareness about self-harm and suicide. http://cheetahmvmt.blogspot.com/
Both students plan on participating in the March of Our Lives on March 24, either in their hometowns or in D.C. For more information about the march in St. Louis, visit https://www.facebook.com/MarchforOurLivesSTL.
