Why Orange?
Orange is the color that Hadiya Pendleton’s friends wore in her honor when she was shot and killed in Chicago at the age of 15 — just one week after performing at President Obama’s 2nd inaugural parade in 2013. After her death, they asked us to stand up, speak out, and Wear Orange to raise awareness about gun violence. Learn More
From email:
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Wear Orange Weekend starts June 4th Save the date and learn more about Wear Orange >> Dave, we’re less than a month away from the start of Wear Orange Weekend. On June 4th, we’ll kick things off by commemorating National Gun Violence Awareness Day to honor the lives of people in the United States affected by gun violence and demand an end to this crisis. Learn more about what we’re doing this year to Wear Orange, including events happening across the country. After Hadiya Pendleton was shot and killed in 2013 at the age of 15, her friends and family organized in Chicago to honor her life by wearing the color orange. Wear Orange originated on June 2, 2015—what would have been Hadiya’s 18th birthday—and is now observed nationally on the first Friday in June and the following weekend each year in order to raise awareness for gun violence prevention. This year, that means calling special attention to how the gun violence crisis has worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the number of people killed by gun violence exceeded 40,000—the highest rate of gun deaths in two decades.1 So, on June 4th, we’ll #WearOrange and come together with communities across the country as we work to end gun violence. Save the date and learn more about how you can be a part of Wear Orange Weekend. Thank you for being a part of this movement. We hope you’ll join us this year to make #WearOrange as impactful as possible. Wear Orange 2021 P.S. You’ll find Wear Orange events on our website, with more added every day, including a national Students Demand Action virtual event. We’ll be in touch soon with more details. |
Many folks may be surprised to find out that last year -2020 – had a huge uptick in gun deaths. This story just didn’t make headlines for two reasons:
A) At the end of the year the corona virus cases and deaths were peaking with nearly 300,000 cases per day and near 5000 deaths per day. Corona virus was story #1 all year.
B) Trump’s baby tantrums continued to occupy news space. Between corona virus and Trump, there wasn’t much room.
From Time’s December 30th, 2020 edition:
This year, many Americans have experienced significantly higher levels of violence both wrought on and within their communities. Gun violence and gun crime has, in particular, risen drastically, with over 19,000 people killed in shootings and firearm-related incidents in 2020. That’s the highest death toll in over 20 years, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), an online site that collects gun violence data, and the Britannia Group’s non-partisan site procon.org.
This total includes victims of homicides and unintentional deaths but does not include gun suicides. And despite there being no “large-scale” shootings in 2020, the number of mass shootings—which are classified as an incident in which four or more people are shot and injured or killed—has actually risen, drastically, to over 600, the most in the past 5 years and a nearly 50% increase in 2019’s total.
When we talk about major health problems in this country, gun deaths is high on the charts and should be treated as such. Please find an orange shirt to wear to show your support.
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