US protests: Martin Luther King's granddaughter leads crowd calling for gun reform

The granddaughter of the late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. energised the crowd in Washington on Saturday (March 24) during the March For Our Lives Rally demanding tighter gun laws, led by survivors of last month's Florida school massacre which reignited public anger over mass shootings.

Martin Luther King practised non-violent demonstrations during the 1960's to fight for equal rights for people of colour. His granddaughter Yolanda Renee King lead the large crowd in a chant calling for common sense gun reform, nearly 50 years after her grandfather was killed in Memphis in April of 1968.

Students from the Parkland, Florida, high school where 17 people were killed on February, 14, spoke to the massive crowd in Washington, where organisers said as many as 500,000 people were expected to demonstrate near the Capitol and call on Congress to fight gun violence.

The protests aim to break a legislative gridlock that has long stymied efforts to increase restrictions on firearms sales in a nation where several mass shootings in schools have taken place.