Incredibly, two good things emerged in the aftermath of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High. The first is the spirit and activism of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas students. The students’ activism and resolve has whipped around the country. These students and their supporters have given the majority of our citizens—the same majority that wants gun control—a much-needed boost. Suddenly, the idea of saying no to the NRA and all who take their money is on everyone’s lips. “No” is on their signs, on petitions, in political campaigns, and in corporate boardrooms.
Two Women
The second is the discovery of Marjory Stoneman Douglas herself. An author and activist, she dedicated her life to restoring, protecting and preserving the Everglades. Published in 1947, her The Everglades: River of Grass changed the way people viewed the vast swamp. Before Douglas’s book, the Everglades were something to be drained, a vast opportunity for commercial developers. Douglas was ahead of her time in making people see the intricate and essential environment of interwoven ecosystems that is the Everglades. Rachel Carson, the groundbreaking scientist and nature writer, was forging paths to environmental protection and science with her writings at the same time. Both women were lonely voices in 1940s and 1950s America. Both women later were inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. https://www.womenofthehall.org
Open Your Eyes
Douglas made people open their eyes to the value of preserving the Everglades. Both women asked a simple but critical question—to quote Rachel Carson, “One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, what it I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?”
A Remarkable Place
If it weren’t for the work that Douglas did in her 108-year life (1890-1998), there would be little of the remarkable Everglades left. The 1.5 million acre wetland occupies the entire southern tip of Florida, and is often compared to a grassy, slow-moving river. Made up of coastal mangroves, sawgrass marshes and pine flatwoods, it is home to hundreds of animal species, including the endangered Florida panther, West Indian manatee, Leatherback turtle, and American crocodile. Home to the ubiquitous American alligator, too. https://www.nationalparks.org/explore-parks/everglades-national-park.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas saved the Everglades as a national park for all of us to visit and study. It’s vast acreage of plants and trees is a positive in this time of accelerated climate change. Most importantly, it is a protected habitat, thanks to Marjory Stoneman Douglas. For her decades-long successful struggle to restore and preserve the Everglades, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Clinton. Upon her death, President Clinton said, “Long before there was an Earth Day, Mrs. Douglas was a passionate steward of our nation’s natural resources, and particularly her Florida Everglades.”
A Remarkable Life
Marjory Stoneman was born in Minnesota and educated in Massachusetts. Graduating magna cum laude from Taunton High School, she studied English literature at Wellesley College. After graduating in 1912, she endured a calamitous marriage to Kenneth Douglas briefly, and traveled to Florida to work on her father’s newspaper, which became the Miami Herald.
During World War I, she left the paper and served with the American Red Cross in Europe, returning to become an editor on her father’s paper—first for the society pages, of course, but later, writing and editing meatier subjects.
Douglas was never far away from her activism whatever she wrote about, whether in newspaper articles, fiction, plays and non-fiction books. She focused on the lives of women, life in southern Florida, the threat of rapid commercial development, and environmental issues. Her activism and thirst for social justice led her to campaign for improved housing conditions, free milk for impoverished children, and the ratification of the Women’s Suffrage Amendment. Meanwhile, she dedicated her life to saving the Everglades.
Her legacy is written in the Everglades, but also in the activism of the students of the high school named after her. She would be proud of these young people.
Her Home Town
Farther north, in Taunton, Massachusetts, a group of 2016 middle school students campaigned the mayor and city council to bring Douglas’s legacy back to the town where she grew up. The kids were successful, and the spotted turtle wetland next to their school was dedicated and named “The Marjory Stoneman Douglas Turtle Sanctuary.” She would be very pleased, and proud of these children, too.
Marjory Stoneman wrote an ode for her 1908 graduation from Taunton High School, sung at the ceremony. The last lines may serve to remind us of the value of activism, the value of working and striving, the value of hope and speaking up—especially when all seems lost, as it does in these dark and violent times:
But the trail calls us on; let us turn and be gone,
For heights are yet to be passed.
With courage to strive and with purpose alive
Let us climb bravely on to the last.
After the massacre, Brenda Ruggiero, the teacher who helped dedicate the Taunton turtle sanctuary, spoke to the local paper about Douglas. “She was an activist and a journalist and wanted people to speak up for what they think is right. She stood up to big business and saved the Everglades. If she were alive today, I do believe she would want someone to speak up.”
The students at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are speaking up, and leading the way.
