February 21, 2018

Gut-Wrenching Parkland Memorials Are Showing Up All Over the Country

Florida’s latest tragedy is resounding from coast to coast.

A woman lays flowers at a student memorial outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Orit Ben-Ezzer via ZUMA Wire

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

After the slaughter in Parkland, Florida, last week, an enormous memorial was set up outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High to mourn the 17 people killed at the school. But as survivors began speaking out—planning a series of demonstrations next month and a national walkout in April—sympathetic mourners around the nation have created makeshift memorials of their own.

In a 1997 paper, Texas professor C. Allen Haney called spontaneous memorials an “emerging American mourning ritual,” a way to mark a place as sacred. Yet that ritual is evolving as memorials are erected in solidarity. We saw it when people commemorated 9/11, the 2015 Paris attacks, and the attacks on Brussels in 2016. Here, now, are some of the far-flung places where people have stepped up to commemorate the victims of Florida’s latest mass shooting.

San Francisco

https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/966072659669733376

Emerald Isle, North Carolina

Orlando, Florida

North Montgomery, Indiana

https://twitter.com/NMHS_FACS/status/965985256078798848

Bettendorf, Iowa

New York City

One of the student victims, 14-year-old Jaime Guttenberg, was a “passionate dancer” who loved the color orange, as Broward County’s Sun-Sentinel reports. To honor her life, dancers across the country—in professional companies, at competitions, and in class—wore orange ribbons while they performed.

Menifee, California

Adrian, Michigan

Upper Montclair, New Jersey

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate