Wear Orange
Today I’m wearing orange. My kids are, too.
The first Friday in June is National Gun Violence Awareness Day. The weekend has been designated as Wear Orange Weekend. Atttend an event around the country, including here in Iowa.
Ten years ago—and less than a week after performing at President Obama’s second inauguration— 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton was shot and killed on a playground in Chicago. Soon after this tragedy, Hadiya’s childhood friends decided to commemorate her life by wearing orange, the color hunters wear in the woods to protect themselves and others. Wear Orange originated on June 2, 2015—what would have been Hadiya’s 18th birthday.
The color orange has a long and proud history in the gun safety movement. Whether worn by hunters in cornfields, activists at the statehouse in Des Moines, or Hadiya’s loved ones in Chicago, orange honors the more than 120 lives cut short and the hundreds more wounded by gun violence every day —and it demands action.
We Wear Orange to demand a future free from gun violence. Orange symbolizes the value of each person’s life and we wear it to honor those killed, wounded or impacted by gun violence, and to call for an end to this crisis.
