Oprah Pledges $500,000 To Support Florida Students’ Call for Gun Control

Oprah Winfrey tweeted Tuesday that she is “joining forces” with George and Amal Clooney in support of the upcoming “March for Our Lives” demonstration by donating half a million dollars to the pro-gun control effort.

The march, which will take place in Washington, D.C., on March 24, was organized in wake of the mass shooting at a Florida high school on Valentine’s Day that left 17 dead. News reports revealed that the alleged gunman, Nikolas Cruz, 19, is a white nationalist and Trump supporter. A motive, however, has not been confirmed.

In the aftermath of the horrific shooting, survivors at the school are advocating for stricter gun laws that would prevent teenagers like Cruz, who has a history of mental illness, from accessing semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15 used in the massacre.

On Tuesday, a Twitter account controlled by the student survivors thanked the Clooneys for donating $500,000 to their cause.

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Hours later, Winfrey pledged to match the Clooney’s donation. The 64-year-old media mogul also compared the #NeverAgain movement to Freedom Riders who took bold actions to combat racism during the Civil Rights era while the government remained inactive in enforcing desegregation in the South.

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Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw have also made sizable donations to March For Our Lives, which will be led by students in honor of the lives that were lost. The mission of the march “is to demand that a comprehensive and effective bill be brought before Congress to address these gun issues. No special interest group, no political agenda is more critical than the timely passage of legislation to effectively address the gun violence issues that are rampant in our country,” reads the website.

Despite pleas for stricter gun control, Florida legislators voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday not to ban assault rifles. Instead, they approved a bill designed “to protect Floridians, especially teenagers, from pornography.”