March for Our Lives plans to barnstorm U.S. with voting drives this summer By Lori Rozsa, Katie Zezima, Washington Post on 06.15.18 Word Count 538 Level MAX

People gathered near the front of the stage hours before the start of the "" rally in Washington, D.C., on March 24, 2018. Photo by: Salwan Georges/The Washington Post

PARKLAND, Florida - March for Our Lives, a youth movement started by students who survived a school shooting in February that killed 17 people here, plans to fan out across the country this summer in a bus tour to register young people to vote.

The tour is scheduled to start on Friday, June 15, in Chicago and has dozens of planned stops over 60 days, and activists plan to register young people to vote in states including California, Connecticut, Iowa, Missouri, South Carolina and Texas. A separate tour is scheduled to make 27 stops in Florida, one in each of the state's congressional districts.

This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com. 1 "We are encouraging people around the country to educate themselves on their vote, to get out there and turn voting into more of an act of patriotism than a chore," , a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and founder of March for Our Lives, said at a news conference here Monday, June 4. "This generation is the generation of students you will be reading about next in the textbooks."

Organizers said the bus tour will register young people at each stop, talking to them about gun reform and whether local candidates support them or have the support of the National Rifle Association (NRA). Kasky pointed out that more than four million people turned 18 this year and are eligible to vote in November's midterm elections.

The stops on the bus tour are targeted: the group aims to register students in areas of the country where politicians are backed by the NRA, and activists also will travel to communities that have been impacted by gun violence, meeting with survivors and victims.

"This issue affects every community, and we're all fighting for our lives," said Ryan Deitsch, a Parkland student. "We need to take our communities back from the NRA, and continue this movement. We'll make our voices heard, register young people to vote, get them to the polls, and change America's gun policies so that these senseless tragedies stop."

The bus drive is the latest iteration of March for Our Lives, which was founded by students shortly after the February 14 shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School. It has led to a wave of activism. In March, tens of thousands of people across the country gathered to demonstrate against gun violence in student-organized marches.

March for Our Lives is working to make voter registration its long-term goal. Shortly after the Parkland shooting, students fanned out to register young people to vote at high schools and colleges nationwide. Groups from around the country hosted voter drives during school walkouts in April on the anniversary of the 1999 massacre at Colorado's Columbine High School. They are setting up voter-registration tables at gun-control marches and are working to galvanize the nation's youngest voters around a single issue.

The students have taken particular aim at the NRA and politicians who receive support from the organization, and gun control advocates have started the #votethemout movement to remove those politicians from office. The NRA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Groups including Rock the Vote, HeadCount, NAACP and Mi Familia Vota will be working with the student bus tour to support digital and in-person voter registration.

This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com. 2