at the start of this section come from nineteen years watching survivors go through the process. It tends to be a much bigger milestone than most of them foresee at the beginning.
I next saw Tío Manny in Chicago on June 15, and met Patricia then. They had just been through graduation, and they were bracing for Father’s Day two days later. We talked about all three occasions. Mother’s Day had been as bad as expected, and graduation was terrible, but they’d felt much better after they devised Patricia’s silent protest of a T-shirt.
I did not attend the graduation. I discussed it later with many of the MFOL kids, and particularly with the Olivers, who were still reeling from it. I composed this section primarily based on those interviews. For details, I watched much of the graduation online. I drew additional details and quotes from the NowThisNews article “Joaquin Oliver’s Parents Appear on Their Son’s Behalf at Parkland Graduation.”
19. Road to Change
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The kids talked to me about the tour throughout April, May, and early June—with all conversations embargoed until it was announced. During much of that period, they were still figuring out what it would really look like. (I didn’t hear about the Florida bus until rather late in the game, but perhaps it just didn’t come up.) I went most in depth about it with Matt and Jackie, and to a lesser extent with David and several others. All quotes and descriptions in this section are from those conversations.
Earlier in the book, I refer to Father Pfleger organizing the Peace Marches (plural), a series of marches held every Friday night throughout the summer. But with MFOL coming to the kickoff march this year, it became a big event, and the church itself dubbed it the Peace March (singular), which is how everyone I encountered before, during, and after spoke of it. So for clarity, I used the singular in this chapter.
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I attended the Peace March on Friday, and also all the related events that evening and Saturday. Friday’s activities included the MFOL students touring the area around the church, Tío Manny creating his mural, the rally, the march, and street interviews after. (The march lasted a long time, and the MFOL kids were dispersed throughout the crowd. I ran up and down the length of it watching the MFOL kids, and speaking briefly to get a quick impression, but mostly giving them space to enjoy it. Daniel was feeling chatty, so I marched with him for a while and talked with him and his new friends.) Saturday included the press availability with kids at Saint Sabina, a public barbeque in a park nearby, and then the first town hall Saturday evening in Naperville, and more press availability afterward (and a bit informally squeezed in before). We also did a Vanity Fair group portrait session with twelve of the MFOL kids early Saturday afternoon. In all, there were opportunities to catch the kids in a multitude of different settings and moods. I checked in with many of them repeatedly throughout the weekend. All depictions and quotes come from that reporting, as well as my preinterviews. I spoke to the MFOL kids about the Peace March many times leading up to the event, and interviewed Alex, D’Angelo, and Father Pfleger by phone several days before. I spoke to all of them throughout the weekend.
Terrell Bosley was shot outside the Lights of Zion Church on Halsted and 116th on Chicago’s Far South Side.
The “freedom riders” added at the last minute were literally last-minute, or close. When the barbeque ended, I stayed to write down my impressions, so I was one of the last to leave. I pitched in with the cleanup and found a manila folder, which looked like something someone would need. So I looked inside, and it was the release forms for one of the Chicago kids to join the bus tour. I had just interviewed him at the barbeque, and we were all headed to the town hall in suburban Naperville, so I texted him that I would bring it to him there. He had signed up to join the tour in the final hour. And he was not the only one.
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All quotes and depictions from Naperville come from my reporting there. Several of the organizers from Downers Grove North High were also at the Peace March, and I chatted with them briefly on Friday, but we were interrupted and didn’t talk long. (There was a lot going on.) I