Rising Stars: Meet Ashley Ju

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Ju.

Hi Ashley, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My name is Ashley Ju, and I’m the president and co-founder of the Cary chapter for March for Our Lives! March for Our Lives is a youth-led movement that promotes civic engagement, education, and direct action to eliminate the epidemic of gun violence. I started my March for Our Lives journey in 2018, right after the Parkland shooting. After this horrible massacre, I opened my eyes to the atrocious things gun violence can inflict.

My middle school held a walkout in response to the shooting, which made me realize how many people genuinely care about gun control. I constantly asked myself, “if this many people care about gun control, then why isn’t our government doing anything?” However, I didn’t know where to start – how could I get our government to understand that I just wanted to feel safe in my school, that I just wanted to survive middle school?

Because of this loss of direction, I didn’t take real action until my sophomore year of high school. I initially wanted to start a March for Our Lives chapter for my high school, but when I applied to get it approved, it was rejected. I was upset because I strongly believe we must talk about gun violence in school – a place where it is so prevalent.

But after seeing all the accomplishments that our chapter has done, I think having a town chapter instead of a school chapter was the best choice. If we had a school chapter, we would have to follow many rules, so we would not have the same opportunities as we have now. Due to this flexibility, we were able to hold a school walkout in response to the Uvalde shooting.

Almost the entire 2,500 student body attended this walkout – students filling up the football stadium with orange signs and ribbons to show solidarity. Later on, we helped organize the 6/11 March for Our Lives protest in Raleigh. Hundreds of people of all ages filled the Halifax Mall to demand change. We also recently spoke at the Bans Off Our Bodies Raleigh Protest in response to the Roe v. Wade decision – the Supreme Court decision that allowed the ban of abortions. The protest was a huge success – over a thousand people attended! We will continue to protest for abortion in the near future at the Raleigh Bands not Bans community event!

I started this chapter with our Vice President – Meriam Ali, Secretary – Kalayah Burns, Treasurer – Hailey Desir, and Outreach officer – Sophia Kim. We are all rising seniors from Panther Creek High School and have been passionate about this fight for gun control since middle school. We hope to create real change in our school, town, and country!

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
As stated previously, we had many issues when starting our chapter. It took us almost two years to create as it was denied by our school, making us switch to a town chapter, get approval, and go through a very long process. Although it was upsetting that we couldn’t have a March for Our Lives at our school, it became a blessing in disguise!

We also faced many obstacles with our school’s walkout. We organized it the day before the event because we weren’t sure if we were supposed to prepare for it since it was a nationwide movement. We then found out that we might need administrative approval, so we decided to prepare for it very fast – it was chaotic, to say the least.

Since it was so last minute, we had to get approval from our principal, get supplies, and spread the word to the entire student body in less than 12 hours! Our principal never formally approved the walkout, but all of our teachers encouraged us to do it regardless of what he said. So that’s what we did, and it was incredible!

The Raleigh March for Our Lives protest was also a lot of work, but it ended up being a great success! The protest was viewed across the state as it was on various news stations and papers such as the Raleigh News and Observer, ABC11, WRALNews, and more!

The abortion protest – Bans Off Our Bodies – was also quite hectic. We were planning on having a rally that same day specifically for gun violence. The rally would be in response to the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen decision. That decision gave Americans the right to keep and carry guns in public. As you can probably already tell, this decision will put thousands of lives at risk, which is why we decided to organize the rally.

But, the following day – the day we were supposed to have our rally – our Supreme Court came out with another absurd and life-threatening decision: Roe v. Wade. We were outraged by this, so we ended up joining forces with countless other organizations such as Planned Parenthood, ACLU, and others to advocate against this decision.

However, it was very last-minute as we joined forces only 6 hours before the actual protest! I ended up writing my speech on the way there, so it was very chaotic. But overall, we are incredibly grateful for the platform they gave us to also bring awareness to the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen decision!

In our speech, we talked about how gun violence and abortion are so intersectional as we said, “No child should ever be forced into the world, especially one where their right to live is not guaranteed. A world where NINETEEN elementary students were shot dead, but the weapon that killed them is less restricted than women’s bodies. If these politicians truly care about children’s lives, then they should increase gun control laws so that they can be safe.”

All in all, it is incredible to see our growth as we started with only two members. We gained over 200 followers in the past three weeks and we’ve spread our activism across city and state lines! So even though we have been through countless obstacles, we are incredibly happy to see our tiny chapter flourish into what it is today!

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We started our chapter this February, and I am proud to say that we have accomplished a lot within these past few months! However, we still have long ways to go in our country and state. I hope our chapter can help push our community, state, and nation on the right path!

Our chapter is more like a chapter for the Triangle because we are one of the few active chapters in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. I am very happy to see that people in our community and state want to be involved and demand change because our country needs people like that!

Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
To anyone reading this, I urge you to vote! I urge you to familiarize yourself with our elected officials voting records and use your ballot. It is one of the most effective ways to show our political power, so we need to make our voices heard!

We are extremely grateful to say that Congress recently passed bipartisan gun legislation for some common-sense gun control laws. However, it was after nearly three decades of congressional inaction. But even with this huge success, our country took another huge step backward with the recent Supreme Court decision.

Our country can only afford to go in one direction: forward. No more backtracks after just one success following decades of doing nothing. Our community deserves reform. The nineteen elementary students who were brutally murdered by a school shooting deserve reform. The ten people simply grocery shopping, and then killed by the joint hands of an assault rifle and racism deserve reform. No more thoughts and prayers, our country needs action now!

If you aren’t old enough to vote – like myself and the many members of our chapter – then please educate yourself and others! Gun violence can affect you, me, and anybody today! If we only talk about this issue once a year, we won’t make a change.

So please, continue educating yourselves and others, vote, and demand our politicians to take action!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/mfolcary
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marchforourlivescary/