Manuel and Patricia Oliver lost their 17-year-old son Joaquin when he was shot during the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre. Since then, they have used urban art and peaceful protest to stand up for gun control in the U.S. with their group Change the Ref.
Their latest project is a mile-long convoy of 52 buses with empty seats for 4,368 children, representing young people who were victims of gun violence since 2020. The Yellow Bus Project or “NRA Children’s Museum” first mobilized Thursday by rolling past the Houston offices and home of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
“This unthinkable collection will be filled with photos, videos, audio recordings, and personal memories of the children who have lost their lives to shootings since 2020 – from a Nickelodeon backpack from Santa Clarita, Calif., to a girl scout sash from Santa Fe, Texas,” said the group.
As a part of the mobile museum, Manuel and Patricia Oliver will also present Cruz with a letter their son wrote when he was 12, less than five years before he was murdered along with 15 others at his school. In it, he asks for background checks on gun sales.
According to Change the Ref, firearms have overtaken car accidents to become the leading cause of death in children since 2020. This data is supported by a letter published this May in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Activists with the group decided on Cruz’s offices as a destination because the politician is “the leading recipient of gun lobbyist funding in the State of Texas ($749,000 total),” Change the Ref said. Anti-gun violence organization Brady United also listed Cruz as one of the senators nationwide who has benefitted the most from NRA spending.
Open Secrets reported this May that Texas – where a mass shooting claimed 19 elementary school students and two teachers in May – is often a target for National Rifle Association donations.
Days after the shooting, Cruz appeared at an NRA event and blamed the tragedy on declining church attendance, violent video games, prescription drugs, social media bullying and other societal factors rather than guns, according to The Hill.
“Senators and House members representing Texas have received more than $2.1 million in contributions from gun rights interests over the course of their careers, with much of that coming from the National Rifle Association,” said Open Secrets.
Manuel Oliver said that the NRA Children’s Museum will not stop at Cruz’s offices.
“To every politician who has stood by, taken NRA money, and refused to listen to the people they represent: the museum is on the way to honor you next,” he said.
“We want to display, for the voters who keep these politicians in office, the consequences of those choices. We want voters to remember which politicians are in the pocket of the NRA when they visit the polls in November,” said Patricia Oliver. “We urge everyone to join us in our mission to fight for every innocent soul lost to gun violence and to demand universal background checks on gun sales.”
Change the Ref members urge Cruz to “immediately renounce future political funding from the NRA and listen to the people’s will to enact legislation for universal background checks – a commonsense gun law reform that an overwhelming percentage of his constituents in Texas support, including Republican voters.”
Those interested in the project can sign an online petition or donate here.
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