I’m back from Chicago’s March for Our Lives rally and utterly overwhelmed by the promise of our future. This was a rally by kids, for kids, featuring kids, and they were amazing. They were eloquent, inspiring, empowered and empowering. They stood on a stage in front of tens of thousands of people, and they spoke with grace, with dignity, with power. They spoke in prose, in poetry, in song. They spoke in many voices, at different volumes, some a bit hard to hear over the background noise of the crowd. All spoke with urgency and grace; none was cowed.

One was a 7th-grader who spoke with more poise and eloquence than adults I have seen in business settings. Her name is Caitlyn Smith, and the Chicago Tribune tells me she’s 12 years old. You would not have believed that if you heard her talk. She was astonishing. I can’t find a video showing her speech, but I can tell you that around the country there were other kids her age speaking eloquently at other March for Our Lives rallies. Perhaps you’ve already seen 11-year-old Naomi Wadler’s speech at the Washington, D.C., rally. If not, here it is:

Most of the speakers at the Chicago rally were high-schoolers; none was older than college-age. They are our future. Perhaps more important, as this rally showed, they are our present. They have joined our political discourse, and they demand to be heard. Politicians, take note; ignore them at your own peril.

I was at the rally because I am tired of seeing children die, in schools or elsewhere. I am tired of mass shootings. I am tired of being afraid for the children and young adults in my life whose days are spent in pre-school classrooms, in elementary schools and junior highs, in high schools, on college campuses. I am tired of fearing that they could be slaughtered when they go to the mall or the movie theatre with friends.

I also was there because I have been inspired by the grace and dignity and eloquence of the student organizers who emerged from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., to lead this new movement after surviving the recent slaughter there. I was there because I want the kids who organized this rally in Chicago to know that their words reach and move and influence adults. I want them to know their power.

I left invigorated and with greater hope for our future. These kids aren’t just serious; they’re talented and eloquent, and they can effect change. If it doesn’t happen this year at the polls, it will happen in the years to come as their generation exerts more and more influence.

I wish I had access to a list of the speakers so I could properly credit them all by name. This young spoken-word poet, identified for me as Whitney Young High School student Jalen Kobayashi by ABC-TV in Chicago, moved me nearly to tears with this line: “To see 17 in this city is such a blessing.” I did find his performance on YouTube, though; here it is:

I’m going down a rabbit hole now on YouTube, watching other kids who spoke at other rallies across the country. I’m once again astonished by the eloquence and poise of 17-year-old Emma Gonzalez, who visibly fought back tears as she spoke the names of every one of her classmates who was killed in Parkland, then went silent for minutes on end to illustrate dramatically the 6 minutes and 20 seconds it took for a gunman to kill all of those teens. As I watch this and other speeches, I’m reminded of the passion and talent of the young people who are our children, and I’m made hopeful.