Rally for DC Lives Before Saturday March

Saturday, March 24^th thousands of people will travel from all over the country to downtown Washington, DC to participate in the March for Our Lives gathering. This event will begin at noon. The march will take place between 3^rd and 12^th streets NW. For more information please visit the organizers website and the dedicated page from the Mayor’s Office.

But before the March for Our Lives takes place at noon, the Rally for DC Lives will take place between 9 and 10 a.m. at Folger Park (3^rd and D Streets SE). The rally will give a platform to seven DC students ages 12 to 18 to share their experiences around gun violence and what needs to happen next.

They will be ed by Mayor Muriel Bowser, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, of the DC Council, and Attorney General Karl Racine in calling for an end to gun violence and an end to congressional interference in DC’s locally ed gun laws.

The DC Board of Elections will be on-hand to voters and pre- youth ages 16-18. At the end of the rally, the attendees will march together to the March for Our Lives along this route.

The rally is organized in a partnership between Mayor Bowser, the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety on behalf of the full DC Council, and Moms Demand Action DC, with from Black Women for Positive Change, Unite the Hill, Marion Barry Youth Leadership Institute, Serve Your City, Incubate, Mikva Challenge DC, and Omega Psi-Phi Fraternity.

The Rally and the March for Our Lives will impact the entire Hill Community, as many of the travelers will come by charter buses that will park at the RFK Campus.

In order to assist in moving the more than 10,000 people who will arrive beginning at 7:00 a.m., WMATA has developed a dedicated March For Our Lives service information webpage where it states that they will run rush-hour service on Saturday March 24^th to accommodate the hundreds of thousands expected to attend the event. Metro will have additional staff at the Stadium-Armory Station, including Transit Police, who will be encouraging people to use both station entrances. They will also be selling SmarTrip cards by hand in order to expedite the lines. WMATA has also provided a webpage outlining the detours for their service due to the march, which you can find here: https://wmata.com/service/status/details/detour-march-for-our-lives.cfm.

Events DC, the District Agency responsible for managing the RFK Campus, has ensured the installation of portable toilets along 19^th Street, adjacent to the Metro entrance closet to the DC Armory, as well as a significant amount throughout the Festival Grounds at RFK Stadium for patron use.

The District of Columbia government has created a website, https://marchforourlives.dc.gov, which will serve as a source of information for attendees as well.