If I Don't Make It, I Love You

Survivors in the Aftermath of School Shootings

Amye Archer, Loren Kleinman

• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Year: 2019
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781510746503
• Subtopic: Social Policy
• Index: Social Sciences

"The result is an important and horrifyingly thick anthology of mass murders...Highly difficult to read in one sitting, but we must not look away." — Kirkus Reviews A harrowing collection of sixty narratives—covering over fifty years of shootings in America—written by those most directly affected by school shootings: the survivors. "If I Don't Make It, I Love You, " a text sent from inside a war zone. A text meant for Stacy Crescitelli, whose 15-year-old daughter, Sarah, was hiding in a closet fearing for her life in Parkland, Florida, in February of 2018, while a gunman sprayed her school with bullets, killing her friends, teachers, and coaches. This scene has become too familiar. We see the images, the children with trauma on their faces leaving their school in ropes, connected to one another with hands on shoulders, shaking, crying, and screaming. We mourn the dead. We bury children. We demand change. But we are met with inaction. So, we move forward, sadder and more jaded. But what about those who cannot move on? These are their stories. If I Don't Make It, I Love You collects more than sixty narratives from school shooting survivors, family members, and community leaders covering fifty years of shootings in America, from the 1966 UT-Austin Towershooting through May 2018's Santa Fe shooting. Through this collection, editors Amye Archer and Loren Kleinmanoffer a vital contribution to the surging national dialogue on gun reform by elevating the voices of those most directly affectedby school shootings: the survivors.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by Fred Guttenberg
• Introduction by Roger S. Friedman, PhD
• CHAPTER ONE Santa Fe High School / Santa Fe, Texas—May 18, 2018
• CHAPTER TWO Great Mills High School / Great Mills, Maryland—March 20, 2018
• CHAPTER THREE Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School / Parkland, Florida—February 14, 2018
• CHAPTER FOUR Marshall County High School / Draffenville, Kentucky—January 23, 2018
• CHAPTER FIVE Umpqua Community College / Roseburg, Oregon—October 1, 2015
• CHAPTER SIX University of California, Santa Barbara/ Isla Vista, California—May 23, 2014
• CHAPTER SEVEN New River Community College at the New River Valley Mall / Christiansburg, Virginia—April 12, 2013
• CHAPTER EIGHT Episcopal School of Jacksonville / Jacksonville, Florida—March 6, 2012
• CHAPTER NINE Sandy Hook Elementary School / Newtown, Connecticut—December 14, 2012
• CHAPTER TEN Northern Illinois University / DeKalb, Illinois—February 14, 2008
• CHAPTER ELEVEN Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)/ Blacksburg, Virginia—April 16, 2007
• CHAPTER TWELVE West Nickel Mines School / Bart Township, Pennsylvania—October 2, 2006
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN North Valley Jewish Community Center / Granada Hills, California—August 10, 1999
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN Columbine High School / Littleton, Colorado—April 20, 1999
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN Thurston High School / Springfield, Oregon—May 21, 1998
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN Heath High School / West Paducah, Kentucky—December 1, 1997
• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Bethel Regional High School / Bethel, Alaska—February 19, 1997
• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Bard College at Simon’s Rock / Great Barrington, Massachusetts—December 14, 1992
• CHAPTER NINETEEN University of Iowa / Iowa City, Iowa—November 1, 1991
• CHAPTER TWENTY Cleveland Elementary School / Stockton, California—January 17, 1989
• CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE University of Texas at Austin / Austin, Texas—August 1, 1966
• Coordinating Trauma: Activists and Survivor Coordinators Recount Their Paths to Supporting Survivors in the Aftermath of School Shootings
• Acknowledgments
• Notes