Silent March is a grassroots organization that runs the national Silent March public education “shoes” project. We collect and display one pair of shoes for each person killed by firearms in a given year. These rows and rows of eloquent, silent shoes, going nowhere, is a “silent march.” There are shoes of suicide victims. Homicide victims. Victims of accidental shootings. Some have personal notes tucked inside sent by family members of victims. Other shoes are sent by people who don’t want to become victims of gun violence.
Since 1994, Silent March has organized empty shoe exhibits, or “Silent Marches” across the country–from the US Capitol to the front gates of the nation’s largest gun makers. This year, we have collected thousands of empty shoes to represent some of the 30,000 Americans killed by guns in 1998. We will hold Silent Marches at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions this summer, to demand that elected officials stop this senseless gun violence — by regulating the firearm industry.
If you have lost someone to gun violence, send us a pair of their shoes with a personal note inside.
