June is Gun Violence Awareness Month, and on June 5, middle school students at Launch Expeditionary Learning Charter School in Crown Heights held their eighth annual Walkout to End Gun Violence.
Wearing orange shirts — the signature color for gun violence awareness — the students marched alongside members of the anti-violence group Save Our Streets (SOS) along Fulton Street, holding signs and chanting, “Don’t shoot, I want to grow up,” and “Guns down, there are kids in the playground,” during a rally at Restoration Plaza.
At the rally, students were joined by anti-violence organizations including Man Up Inc., Students Demand Action, Everytown, and Moms Demand Action. They raised awareness about gun violence by presenting student-researched public health solutions and sharing their fears and hopes for the community through art, including poetry and expressive dance.
Seventh grader Neveah read a poem she wrote in honor of her uncle and grandfather, both victims of gun violence. She told Brooklyn Paper she poured her emotions and soul into the piece.
“I just thought, if I write this, I could stay strong for them,” said Neveah, who encouraged others to seek dialogue instead of turning to violence.
“If somebody is bullying you, you should talk it out with somebody instead of going to get a gun and going back to school and shooting up that person, and everybody that’s there because their loved one is waiting for them to come home,” she said.
While the NYPD reported on June 3 that New York City saw a record low in murders and shootings during the first five months of 2025, the United States’ gun homicide rate remains 26 times higher than that of other high-income countries.
According to a Pew Research Center analysis, 46,728 people died from gun-related injuries in 2023. Of those, 27,300 were suicides and 17,927 were murders. The remaining gun deaths were either accidental, involved law enforcement, or were undetermined. Communities affected by gun violence are also at greater risk for physical health issues, mental health challenges, and substance use disorders.
Thirteen-year-old Aubrey Phillip told Brooklyn Paper that someone carrying a gun followed her home for nearly seven blocks.
“I was really scared,” Phillip recalled. “So it’s really scary to go outside alone.”
Anthony Rowe, project director for Neighbors in Action — an organization that promotes community wellness and justice in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights — told Brooklyn Paper the rally gave young people a platform to use their voices and be heard in the fight against gun violence.
“We realized that a lot of the spaces that we occupy, whether we’re at the tables with elected officials or other legislators, don’t involve the voices of young people. And young people are the closest people to being affected by and impacted by gun violence,” Rowe said. “We feel like the adults have all the answers to everything, and the young people are telling you what they need, feel, and deserve.”
In addition to promoting a visible, public message against violence, organizations like SOS help mediate conflicts that could potentially lead to violence and serve as peer counselors for at-risk community members.
Rowe noted that in neighborhoods with active Cure Violence organizations, gun violence has declined as those groups connect at-risk youth with opportunities such as internships, stipends, counseling and mentorship.
“Over the past four years, gun violence has taken a stark dip, especially in the communities that have cure violence organizations,” Rowe said. “We are the most credible people do the most credible work with the most impacted people.”
Seventh grade math teacher Asha Haynes said the annual event is designed to empower students to become agents of change, raise awareness and encourage collaboration to address community violence.
“Our students are impacted by [gun violence] on a daily basis, whether it be shootings around their school, community shootings around their home, and a lot of students are ultimately looking for a change because they want to be able to make it to future years,” Haynes told Brooklyn Paper.
Haynes said the collaboration between students and anti-violence organizations plays a key role in raising awareness about gun violence.
“[The organizations] work with students, and it really gets students to be able to see that there are people out there in the community that want [anti-gun] awareness to be spread [and] their voices to be heard,” Haynes said. “So when students can go into their communities and they see, ‘we’ve partnered up with this organization, and now I’m walking home I can feel a little bit safer within my community.’”
