On the second-to-last day of January, a parade of Belmont High School students snaked along Concord Avenue, under the train tracks and up the hill to Town Hall.
An observer’s guess put the number above 300 total. They had walked out of Belmont High School at around 1 p.m. to protest the activities of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, part of a national protest that saw walkouts and business closures nationally.
Senior class Vice President Lina Kang was the primary organizer of the walkout, an idea she arrived at on the Tuesday prior. She already had plans to participate in protests in Boston on Saturday and saw a chance to bring that social activism to Belmont.
“I knew about the nationwide walkout and I wanted to do something locally,” Kang said.
It was, for Kang, the walkout would offer her fellow students a chance to express their feelings about the state of the nation. Even those not directly impacted by ICE should have a chance to speak up.
“It should not have to happen to you to matter to you,” Kang said.
So, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, Kang, her friend and fellow student government member Eda Galvez, and others used a combination of social media, email, and old-fashioned posters-on-the-wall to get the word out.
“We wanted to bring awareness to what was going on nationally,” said Galvez. “Really, the aim was to bring awareness to what’s going on nationally.”
According to Kang, there was no way of knowing if anyone would show up. The crowd, standing outside on a below-freezing New England day in January, meant the event was a ringing success.
“It made me so proud to see people walking, standing up and taking a political stance,” Galvez said.
During the walk, the students carried signs denouncing ICE actions in other parts of the country. At Town Hall, they huddled together in a growing crowd, chanting anti-ICE slogans.
It was, Galvez said, the first such political action at Belmont High School in a long time. The most recent she could recall was an anti-gun violence rally in 2021.
“It felt quite important,” she said. “There hasn’t been anything like it in years.”
Galvez was emphatic: The walkout, from idea to execution, came from the students. Teachers, she said, were told clearly to avoid taking a stance.
A letter from Principal Isaac Taylor, sent on Thursday, underlined that:
- This walkout is not sponsored or endorsed by the school or the district.
- Posters or flyers advertising the event on school property will be removed.
- Students who choose to participate may face consequences for cutting class, consistent with the student handbook.
- While the school does not support or endorse this walkout, we will take steps to ensure student safety. These steps include working with students to limit the scope of the walkout, providing staff supervision, and temporarily closing the front circle to traffic during the event.
The letter closed by saying that civil disobedience or civil action is an act of conscience and should be undertaken, understanding the consequences.
“It was definitely not done by teachers or staff,” Galvez said.
Kang, who ended up as a student speaker at a rally in Copley Square later in the day, called the Belmont event an empowering experience for anyone who took part or witnessed the walkout, meaning the event, in her mind, was an absolute success.
“People want to do something, and as a student, it can be hard to find the time and the opportunity to take action on political issues,” she said. “But change is accessible and possible.”
