Amneh Jafari , a native of Fort Worth, Texas, never expected to help spark an international movement. But when the senior psychology major at the University of Texas at Arlington saw a news photo of Ahmed Mohamed in handcuffs for bringing a homemade clock to MacArthur High School, Irving, Texas, it felt personal. “It really saddened me,” Jafari said. “I have younger siblings, and I felt like I was looking at them.” The 23-year-old tweeted a hashtag #IStandWithAhmed that went viral. “I felt like I needed to, I had to,” Jafari said. Two days later, her hashtag had been tweeted more than 1 million times. President Barack Obama invited Mohamed to the White House, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg invited him to his headquarters. It shows the power of social media to give a voice to the voiceless, Jafari said. “To see that there’s so many good people in the world. … It means so much to see so many people stand for what’s right.”
Tweet for justice
October 19, 2015
