The students at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School give me renewed hope for the future of this country. Their thoughtful, articulate and passionate activism about gun violence follows in the footsteps of the woman who bears the school’s name.

She was born in Minneapolis in the 1890s but left when her father bought the Miami Herald, thus beginning her wide ranging lifetime of activism, living 108 years. She was involved in everything from war refugees in World War I, women’s suffragettes, civil rights, urban planning, sanitation issues, etc. The last half of her life she fought real-estate developers, the Army Corps of Engineers, politicians and presidents to try to save the Everglades. She wrote “The Everglades: River of Grass,” which helped change the perception of that region as a worthless swamp to a treasured and essential part of the ecosystem.

I can’t help feeling her smiling down on the students and giving them her blessing. A key quote of hers: “Be a nuisance where it counts, do your part to inform and stimulate the public to join your action. Be depressed, discouraged, and disappointed at failure and the disheartening effects of ignorance, greed, corruption and bad politics — but never give up.”