‘COVID can’t kill democracy.’ March For Our Lives uses art to encourage youth vote.

March For Our Lives, the gun violence prevention youth movement founded after the 2018 Parkland school shooting, is launching a nine-state push, beginning in Miami, using public art to encourage young people to vote in November despite the pandemic.

“COVID can’t kill democracy,” said 17-year-old Ryan Servaites, a member of the March For Our Lives Youth Congress, a student-led steering body for the group.

Servaites — a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who won’t be old enough to vote in November — and his fellow youth organizers across the country have launched an art activism tour to mobilize and energize young voters.

The goal, Servaites said, is “to use art as a means to show young people the power that they have.“

The art display coming to Miami — a neon sign reading, “Si, se puede vota,” which means “Yes, you can vote” — is supposed to remind everyone who sees it that they have a voice they can use in the coming election, according to Alyssa Ackbar, 19, one of the state directors for March For Our Lives Florida.

“[We’re] targeting Spanish speakers, the immigrant population in Miami with the Spanish, and reminding them that the power lies with them,” Ackbar said. “Our vote is our power and if we’re utilizing that vote, we’re utilizing our power.”

Nine states — Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin — were chosen because the group felt the “voices of youth voters have the best chance to be heard [there],” according to a press release. They hope the public art installations will shed light on issues that intersect with the group’s central mission of gun violence prevention.

“Art is a great way of bringing people in,” Servaites said. “And that’s the thinking that we kind of pushed behind this. It was, how can we activate young people, show them that democracy isn’t just one day out of the year, but that voting is a component of a greater thing that is democracy. It is a lifestyle.”

Due to the high number of coronavirus cases in Florida — and Miami, in particular — the neon sign in Miami won’t be going up immediately, but according to a March For Our Lives spokesperson, it will be displayed permanently once it is safe to do so under COVID-19 guidelines for opening art galleries. It’s still unclear where the sign will go, and whether it will be inside or outside. The group must follow city requirements on gathering in public spaces, according to a March For Our Lives spokesperson.

Florida’s chapter of March For Our Lives will continue to host digital events to mobilize young voters, including an event on Aug. 24 in partnership with groups dedicated to immigrant justice in Miami to discuss how art can be used as a tool for activism.

Ackbar said “we’ve all kind of had to shift to this digital space. So even though we’re doing an art installation on the ground, we want to give people the option to do the safest thing for them personally.”

Once the artwork is installed in Miami, March For Our Lives Florida plans on hosting in-person conversations with community members — following social distancing guidelines — about the importance of turning out to vote, immigrant justice and how that intersects with gun violence, Ackbar said.

March for Our Lives was formed after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Feb. 14, 2018, that killed 17 and wounded 17 others.

In all nine states, the group has partnered with other organizations that are dedicated to causes that intersect with gun violence prevention, such as Black Lives Matter in Houston and the International Indigenous Youth Council in Denver.

“Our goal is to focus on the issues that we want to focus on, things like immigration rights, things like gun violence and how they interact, but also show that the key to solving these issues is to creating a truly democratic country,” Servaites said.

There have been signs indicating that a large youth turnout in the 2020 presidential election, especially in Florida, could play a significant role in shaping the election’s outcome. According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, Florida ranks third in the research group’s ranking of states where youth are expected to have a disproportionately high electoral impact on the election.

“In a state known for the influence of older voters, young people can shape the race because of their radically different vote choice: they favored the Democratic candidate by 18 points in 2016 and 34 points in 2012,” according to the group’s research.

And, if the record-breaking youth turnout in the 2018 midterm elections is any indication, young people may be poised to turn out in high numbers on Nov. 3. Servaites is hopeful that that will be the case, he said.

“When it comes down to it, we’re about self-determination, we’re about people, and especially young people, getting out there and doing this thing that for so long a lot of young people didn’t know they could do,” Servaites said. “And that’s part of the reason why I think Gen Z is so unique, is that I think a lot of us have realized the power that we have.”

But Servaites and Ackbar both said that while driving youth turnout in the Nov. 3 election is an immediate goal for the group, they both hope that the movement will spark greater activism from young people even after the presidential election.

“The results of this moment hopefully is a movement. It is young people finally realizing that activism isn’t just a day, it’s a process,” Servaites said. “Just because you elected someone doesn’t mean that your work is over, doesn’t mean that that person’s going to do exactly what you want. No, you need to keep fighting for what you believe in, and that there’s power in that.”

This story was originally published August 21, 2020 at 3:56 PM.