'Happy Birthday' sing-along at March for Our Lives protest becomes emotional

Overcome with emotion, one Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School survivor, her voice shaking, led the March for Our Lives crowd in D.C. in a round of "Happy Birthday" in honor of her slain classmate, Nicholas Dworet, who would have turned 18 years old today.

Some in the crowd held each other close as they joined along and sang.

Dworet, one of 17 people killed in the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida last month, was a passionate swimmer who was headed to the University of Indianapolis to join the university's swim team, his family said.

March for Our Lives 2018

March for Our Lives draws huge crowds to Washington, D.C. and cities across the country

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Hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the streets in cities across the U.S. on March 24, 2018, in the biggest protest for gun control in a generation, spurred largely by the shooting that took place on Valentine's Day at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where 17 people died. <br> <br> Students from Centreville, Va., wear targets on their chests as they arrive for the March for Our Lives rally on March 24, 2018, in Washington, D.C.

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"He was a happy young man full of joy and life," his family said in a statement. "He dreamed of making the Olympic swim team and going to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. He believed he could accomplish anything as long as he tried his best."