Austin’s March For Our Lives 2018: 20 inspiring photos of local action

Residents of Austin and surrounding cities took to the streets Saturday, along with thousands across the nation, to protest gun violence. The rallies were coordinated in solidarity with the national March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C., which drew an estimated 800,000 people in what was possibly that city’s biggest single-day protest in history.

The event was one of many that took place across the country in a student-led national effort to raise awareness and make substantive changes to change state and federal gun policies.

In Austin, law enforcement agencies and rally organizers worked to increase security for Saturday’s event in light of the (apparently unrelated) bombings that had terrorized the city the week leading up to the march.

Austin participants gathered at City Hall and marched up Congress Avenue to the state Capitol for the rally, where a number of students, Mayor Steve Adler, and film/TV star Matthew McConaughey spoke to the crowd. The latter was invited by organizers and said he was speaking as a husband and a father and not as a politician (wait, is he running for something?), according to the Austin American-Statesman, which also reported that an estimated 20,000 demonstrators participated in the local rally. Smaller towns and cities in the Austin metro area, including Round Rock and Pflugerville, also held rallies for the cause on Saturday.

• D.C.’s March For Our Lives 2018: 13 photos, revealed [Curbed D.C.]

• Student-led March For Our Lives draws 20,000 to the Capitol [AAS]