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Alex Orange died taking a stand.
It was the first night of spring break and the popular West Charlotte High School football player was with friends at a party themed Stop the Violence.
A student from a rival school began shooting into the air. As most of the 200 partygoers ran, Alex grabbed the shooter and tried to wrestle the gun away.
But a bullet struck the 17-year-old in the chest.
A week later, more than 300 classmates gathered in West Charlotte's cafeteria and decided to take a stand for Alex.
This weekend, the organization they started, Students Against Violence Everywhere, is celebrating its 20th anniversary. With more than 200,000 members in more than 1,700 chapters across the country, SAVE operates in elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, colleges and community groups in 47 states and several foreign countries.
Today, some 300 members are expected to return to SAVE's birthplace for a youth summit at West Charlotte.
"No matter what they talk about with SAVE, they have to start the story off with ... my friend Alex," said Angela Bynum, who met Alex when they were in middle school. "People have to know what kind of person he was."
Bynum was a senior at West Charlotte in 1989. She'd eaten lunch with Alex hours before he was killed. Bynum was back in that cafeteria days later, standing on a lunch table and imploring fellow students to do what Alex did: take a stand against youth violence.
"This can't keep on happening," she remembers telling the crowd of weeping and frustrated classmates. "We have to do something to stop this."
It's a refrain she has repeated many times in the past two decades. Now working for the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office, she's spoken at schools across the state. When she retires, she hopes to dedicate her life to stopping youth violence. On Friday night, she stood holding a candle alongside students from across the country, paying tribute to Alex.
The students who lead West Charlotte's SAVE chapter today weren't alive when Alex was shot. But they have their own stories to motivate them.
"There's always going to be more stories," said John Scott, a junior who is president of West Charlotte's SAVE chapter.
He ticked off the names of other young people who have been killed in Charlotte in the past year. "We had the Hawthorne shootings. We had Travis Moore. We had a girl in Olympic who was killed. ... That's the thing about violence: It's not going to stop."
The struggle to stop violence is becoming more complicated, students say. Guns and gangs still fuel youth violence. But now, widespread access to technology can provoke conflict.
The YouTube video they cite as an example shows a fight at West Charlotte early this year. In a shaky picture, as students watch and cheer, two teens throw punches and roll on the ground until a police officer and another adult pull them apart. The student recording the scene can be heard egging on the fight.
Since the video was uploaded in January, the clip has gotten more than 14,000 hits, including, students say, everyone at West Charlotte.
This is what students in SAVE say they are battling today: Teens aren't just running toward schoolyard fights; they are whipping out cell phone cameras, recording dark moments, and then passing clips from person to person. Sometimes, the videos make it to YouTube for the world to see.
Student leaders say the new technology increases the propensity for violence - and retaliation.
"It's easier to gossip about things. Phone, e-mail, YouTube, we have all these different things," said SAVE President Scott. "You look on YouTube, you'll see the fight you missed yesterday, which increases the humiliation. And that anger builds up in them."
Students' perspective, leaders say, has led to the growth and success of SAVE. It's the reason hundreds of schools have started SAVE programs as part of their campaigns to reduce youth violence.
"It does make a difference when the young people speak," said Gary Weart, a retired West Charlotte teacher who helped start SAVE. Students expect Weart to preach nonviolence. "They don't expect other young people to say those things."
Weart knew Alex Orange well. He taught Alex world history and coached him on the football team.
In a book he wrote about teaching in Charlotte schools, Weart chronicles the impact of Alex's death and remembers the teen as a kid with promise.
"He was always smiling and didn't have an enemy in the world," Weart writes in the book he dedicated to Alex. "He was a well-respected kid who didn't deserve to have a bullet hammered into his chest."
