Erik Guerra

Social Movements

MW 3:30-4:45 P.M.

START Events: Marching

I have never done most of these social movement tactics. Marching is one I have never done as well. Picketing and trying to spread information regarding a certain cause was something I had only seen in movies or outside of school districts. I never truly understood what people were trying to accomplish and why. On March fourth 2014 I would participate in my very fist march.

It began with my group creating signs. We created signs that had small and general sayings. These sayings or phrases were about the rise of tuition. We also included our group acronym. Our acronym is S.T.A.R.T. This stands for students against rising tuition. After having all of our tools for the march we came together at the freedom of speech area at Fresno State. From here we began on our march through campus.

We marched on through campus making our way towards the front of the school which lead us to shaw avenue. We seemed to get a lot of attention which was great. Although we got a lot of positive attention I do remember one car that was passing us by yelling out "Go to school" this disappointed me. It was obvious that we didn't specify our true cause which was only students against tuition.

Other than the one car that didn't receive the message we were trying to give I felt that the march went great. I held a sign hoping that people could understand my cause and maybe agree with my cause as well. If I could change some things I would create more signs with different slogans and facts about our cause. Another thing I would change would be the date of the actual march. I was later informed that sometime later there would be a type of gathering at Fresno State. If the march was practiced at that time, the chance of more people seeing our sings and learning our cause could have been greater.