17-year-old climate activist from Portland joins protest at House speaker’s office

On Thursday, about 18 young people from the Sunrise Movement were arrested for occupying Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s office in Washington D.C. The group was protesting a government shutdown and demanding climate action.

Adah Crandall is a climate activist, organizer with the youth-led Sunrise Movement, and a recent graduate of Grant High School in Portland. She participated in the protest but was not among the people who were arrested during the sit-in outside Speaker McCarthy’s office.

“We stood in the hallway and listened to the echoes of our friends continuing to sing as all of them were arrested,” she said. “Demanding that the GOP not shut down the government and that they act on climate immediately.”

Crandall and other members of the Sunrise Movement traveled this week to D.C. to lobby for the Green New Deal for Public Schools Act. The proposal was reintroduced by Democratic lawmakers Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York and Sen. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts on Thursday.