On Friday, April 24, high school students across Milwaukee participated in a Student Day of Action. Although Shorewood students had already participated in an anti-ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) walkout earlier this year, this protest was a bigger project. Students from 15 different schools, mainly Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), rallied together through Youth Empowered in the Struggle, or the youth branch of Voces de la Frontera, a “membership-based community organization led by low-wage workers, immigrants and youth whose mission is to protect and expand civil rights and workers’ rights” (Voces de la Frontera).

Diego Murphy, senior, was a student organizer and representative. He further explained how Shorewood became involved.

“The way this worked was basically all the schools that had walkouts for ICE or some other sort of demonstration, were brought together by a larger organization that’s been doing work in Milwaukee for a couple years now,” Murphy said. “So me and Billy [Mehr] were the representatives for Shorewood, and then they had kids from Nicolet, they had kids from all the different MPS schools. Shorewood and Nicolet were the only schools outside of MPS that were present.”

The Day of Action was unique because it was not limited to raising awareness or protesting against only one event or issue. Instead, many different concerns ranging from war to local issues were expressed as it passed through City Hall and other significant locations in downtown Milwaukee.

“[We met at] Cathedral Square park,” Murphy said. “We marched around the downtown area, we went up to the ICE facility, rendezvous’ed at Red Arrow Park, and then buses picked people up from there. There was a lot going on, I think there were three major things that we were protesting: the war in Iran, genocide in Gaza, and then, locally, I guess MPS has had a lot of different issues with funding and that usually ends up meaning that teachers are being paid less.”

Some of these issues involve actions taken by the district to address a $46 million structural deficit. This spring, MPS eliminated 263 non-classroom positions, including 201 current employees who received “excess letters” notifying them their current jobs will not exist, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

According to Murphy, the students brought positive energy and vigor to the demonstration, showcasing how many students shared this vision.

“Turnout was good,” Murphy said. “People were willing to be loud. No one was shy, which was really great to see. I think we had around 300 [total] students, give or take.”

This was evident before the march began, with participants infusing joy into the event despite the grave issues that were at hand.

“At the beginning, we had loudspeakers and music playing and people sort of moshing and dancing before just to get hyped up, which was cool,” Murphy said. “If you’re trying to organize and what you’re fighting is really intimidating, you know, killing people, kidnapping people, separating families, [and] you’re going to be part of some sort of resistance you’ve got to keep your spirits up. It’s always nice to see people coming together to do a demonstration, but also bring some joy into it.”

Murphy cited constant exposure to the grave reality of world events as a motivating factor for putting together and participating in events like the Day of Action.

“You can turn on the news, you can scroll on Instagram, or really anything and you just see terrible, terrible things going on, but then there’s also things locally, like you see more data centers popping up, flock cameras popping up, again, Salah Sarsour [the president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee] was kidnapped outside of his home by twelve ICE agents just because he’s part of the Muslim community here in Milwaukee,” Murphy said.

However, he shared that being part of the walkout helped to lessen the overwhelming nature of the issues facing these students and members of society. This walkout really emphasized the importance of each individual doing their part.

“It’s [about] acting within your means,” Murphy said. “I’m not president of the United States, I’m not an elected official, I’m not a judge, I’m just a student. So we take the opportunities that are given to us as students, and this was within reach, so [we] just gotta go for it. Everyone’s gotta do their whole part.”

As far as he is concerned, the walkout accomplished its goal of keeping the issues at hand relevant and giving students an opportunity to make their voices heard.

“If anything, the main accomplishment was that if there’s a history book written about this time, with what America was looking like as far as political engagement and unrest, we are adding one more bullet point to that,” Murphy said.

For Murphy, this is key because it shows how youth can come together and be part of something bigger.

 “It’s a lot of effort to bring in a bunch of kids from different schools, but in doing that we’re becoming one of many other places around the country that are doing the exact same thing…so individually, even in Milwaukee, it might not seem like it did a whole lot, but on a larger scale, it’s about being part of a movement,” Murphy said.

The walkout brought together students from over a dozen schools, including many from MPS along with Shorewood students. Anita Bendre, junior, noted that this greatly contributed to showing how important this issue is. 

“The biggest way that people can contribute to these kinds of events is really just by showing up,” Bendre said. “The more people that show up, the more people will notice how big of an issue ICE really is. Even though we are students, we still have a voice.”

Student speeches are a part of these walkouts. Ryan Wilson, junior, thought that these played a significant  role in spreading the message.

“I thought [the students] had really important messages,” Wilson said. “It was really interesting to see how students connected with the different aspects of political stances in student speeches.”

Bendre added that given the current circumstances of the political landscape, it was admirable of the students to go out and protest. 

“Its really impressive,” Bendre said. “It takes a lot out of the students to take to the streets and protest. There are so many details that go into it and the time taken out of everyone’s day is really a big deal, but in the end it is all worth it.”

There are many logistics at play when planning out a protest like this. Bendre emphasized that those in charge of these factors did  a great job organizing the walkout.

“It must be really difficult to organize an event this big,” Bendre said. “There are just so many moving parts and so many people involved that it takes real effort to figure it out. Regardless of that, everyone running the walkout did a fantastic job getting the information out, figuring out where to meet, what to do, and just spreading the message as a whole.”

Social media played a large part in spreading the word. Bendre mentioned how many different sites held important information about the walkout.

“I heard a lot about the walkout from my friends, but a lot of details were spread all over social media,” Bendre said. I think I saw an Instagram post that had all the details on the walkout listed. I feel like that was a really great way to get out the word and spread awareness to students.”

Wilson highlighted the walkouts’ importance in allowing Shorewood students to participate in civic engagement.

“We’re kind of limited as younger people because we can’t vote,” Wilson said. “However as students we have a voice and are educated, and everybody has what they believe in and it’s really cool to see people’s different points of views.”

He also echoed Bendre’s point about the organization of the event, as well as the power of gathering like-minded young people in one place to share their voice,

“It was super well organized,” Wilson said. There was food and water for people, and I think there was transportation as well. On top of that, I was just really impressed with the energy everyone had about the issues.”