More Than 330 Events Took Place Throughout Wear Orange Weekend; Wear Orange 2021 Participants Included More Than 1,000 Partners, Influencers, Landmarks, and Elected Officials
#WearOrange Trended Nationally for the Sixth Year in a Row with More Than 70,000 People Posting to Social Media Calling for an End to Gun Violence
NEW YORK — During National Gun Violence Awareness Day on June 4 and Wear Orange Weekend, June 5-6, more than 1,000 partner organizations, influencers, corporate brands, elected officials, and landmarks joined hundreds of thousands of Americans to unite around a call to end gun violence.
Wear Orange began on June 2, 2015 – what would have been Hadiya Pendleton’s 18th birthday. Hadiya’s friends were looking for a way to honor her after she was shot and killed on a Chicago playground, and chose the color orange because it’s what hunters wear to protect themselves and others in the woods. Today, Wear Orange honors Hadiya and the more than 100 Americans shot and killed every day, as well as the hundreds more who are wounded.
Support for the Wear Orange campaign and National Gun Violence Awareness Day continues to grow each year. Full details on Wear Orange 2021 are available here. Highlights of the weekend include:
- Thousands of grassroots volunteers from Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, in collaboration with the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund and more than 200 local partners, hosted more than 330 events and activities in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. The events ranged from a community cleanup event in Tennessee to suicide prevention trainings in Montana and a blood drive in California. Supporters are continuing to fundraise to support 10 local partners as part of Wear Orange, where Everytown Support Fund will match up to $150,000 raised through the end of the campaign.
- There were more than 175,000 social media posts throughout Wear Orange Weekend, helping #WearOrange trend nationally on National Gun Violence Awareness Day for the sixth year in a row.
- More than 450 landmarks, buildings and billboards across the country turned orange including the Empire State Building, Coit Tower, Niagara Falls, Los Angeles City Hall, Washington National Cathedral, A Carousel for Missoula (MT), The Nashville Sign, Cheyenne Depot Museum (WY), the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge (Boston), and Lamar Advertising digital billboards.
- For the first time, DICK’S Sporting Goods, in partnership with the Women’s National Basketball Players Association, made “The W Wears Orange” t-shirts available to the public in support of Wear Orange. The shirts are being sold online and at approximately 120 stores across the country and online. WNBA players across the league wore the t-shirts to games throughout the weekend.
- Lion Forge Animation, a leading Black-owned animation studio which won an Academy Award in 2020 for the animated short, “Hair Love,” collaborated with Everytown to produce “Blossom,” an original short film which powerfully illustrates the experience of joining the Wear Orange movement.
- During Wear Orange Weekend, the National Building Museum in Washington D.C collected objects belonging to victims of gun violence for the Gun Violence Memorial Project — a project designed by MASS Design Group that features four houses built of 700 glass bricks; each house represents the average number of American lives taken by gun violence each week. As part of the launch of Wear Orange 2021, Rep. Lucy McBath (GA-06) donated an object in honor of her son, Jordan Davis.
- More than 150 influencers and cultural leaders participated in #WearOrange this weekend, including Mariah Carey, John Legend, Shonda Rhimes, Julianne Moore, Reese Witherspoon, Sophia Bush, Chelsea Clinton, Kerry Washington, Michelle Kwan, Lily Collins, Bette Midler, Kevin Bacon, Amy Schumer, Samantha Bee, Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan, Katie Couric, Michael Franti, Clare Vivier, Naomi Scott, and Jason George, as well as bands Anti-Flag, Bon Iver, and X Ambassadors.
- Wear Orange partnered with the sports community once again through a launch event with the Washington Mystics of the WNBA and Monumental Sports & Entertainment; coordinated game day participation by players like Sue Bird, Natalie Achonwa and Layshia Clarendon across the WNBA and the San Francisco Giants of the MLB; activations by Coach Steve Kerr of the Golden State Warriors, Sacramento Kings, Denver Broncos, Baltimore Orioles, Pittsburgh Steelers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Minnesota Twins, Jacksonville Jaguars, Tampa Bay Rays, Cleveland Cavaliers, Atlanta Falcons, Connecticut Sun, and the National Women’s Hockey League, along with members of the Everytown Athletic Council including Aaron Donald and his AD99 Foundation, Natasha Cloud, Hilary Knight, Race Imboden and Diontae Spencer; and the publication of personal essays by Reggie Bullock of the New York Knicks in The Players’ Tribune, and retired WNBA player Devereaux Peters in Vogue, who also was a guest on Renee Montgomery’s Takeline podcast on Crooked Media.
- More than 100 brands supported Wear Orange including Amalgamated Bank, Levi Strauss & Co., Northwell Health, RXR Realty, ViacomCBS, MTV, Country Music Television, and WarnerMedia. Media brands featuring Wear Orange included Crooked Media’s Takeline, Dame, Good Housekeeping, Parents, Parents Latina, PEOPLE, Prevention, Seventeen, Vogue, and Woman’s Day among others.
- More than 190 federal lawmakers supported Wear Orange on social media across multiple branches of government, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-12), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and members of the Cabinet and White House. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Representative Robin Kelly (D-IL-02) also introduced resolutions recognizing June 4th as National Gun Violence Awareness Day and June as National Gun Violence Awareness Month to honor Hadiya’s birthday – June 2, 1997 – and to remember all victims and survivors of gun violence, with participation from the Congressional Black Caucus and both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees official accounts.
- More than 180 mayors from around the country participated in the Wear Orange campaign including Mayor LaToya Cantrell (New Orleans, LA), Mayor Quinton Lucas (Kansas City, MO), and Mayor Jorge Elorza (Providence, RI), issuing proclamations declaring June 4 as National Gun Violence Awareness Day, lighting, municipal landmarks orange, and posting on social media.
- More than 200 non-profit organizations and faith partners across various issue areas joined the coalition of organizations turning orange on June 4, with groups like Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, Clergy for Safe Cities, Latino Victory Fund, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Cure Violence Global, Union for Reform Judaism, Cities United, and the Greater New York Hospital Association taking part in Wear Orange Weekend.