Emerson Marquees to Raise Gun Violence Awareness

Emerson College will join media companies, state and municipal governments and nonprofits across the country in raising awareness about gun violence by lighting up the marquees of the Paramount and Cutler Majestic theaters Thursday, June 2.

From 9:00 am Thursday until midnight, the marquees will run an orange sequence that reads, “Wear Orange on June 2 for National Gun Awareness Day.” The property management office also will illuminate the Tufte Tower in orange.

National Gun Awareness Day and its Wear Orange (www.wearorange.org) campaign was started last year by friends of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, a Chicago high school student who was killed by gunfire in 2013. The campaign uses orange because that’s the color hunters wear to protect themselves from other hunters, according to Wear Orange.

In addition to Emerson, Viacom and its media brands will promote the campaign extensively, through donated PSAs, orange station logos, and the airing of Katie Couric’s documentary, Under the Gun, on EPIX, according to Moms Demand Action, a grassroots group advocating stronger gun laws. Five national women’s magazines – Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Essence, Marie Claire, and Women’s Health – have agreed to take part in the campaign, Moms Demand Action said. State capitols in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Providence, Rhode Island; and city halls in Brockton, Massachusetts; Hoboken, New Jersey; and San Francisco will be illuminated orange.

In Boston, the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge will be lit up orange, and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh will join 49 other mayors in 21 states in wearing the color on June 2.

Emerson President Lee Pelton has been a leader in creating dialogue around gun laws and gun violence. Days after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, Pelton enlisted 150 fellow college and university presidents nationwide in sending a letter to President Obama pledging their commitment to helping stop gun violence. 

Emerson also hosted a four-part panel discussion series that spring with WGBH around issues of the Second Amendment and gun control.