Local Peace Movement Goes To D.C. For Protest

At 5:30 a.m. Saturday, the nation's capital will be quiet. The endless streams of commuters will be obsolete as the crowded interstates will be mostly empty. It will be a Saturday, and the thousands of government workers who bring Washington, D.C., alive every morning will be at home asleep.

But at 5:30 a.m., Franklin Street will be bubbling with energy as nearly 400 people pool outside Internationalist Books to depart for what is expected to be the largest anti-war protest in the nation's capital since the Vietnam War.

UNC students and area residents will flood the modest bookstore -- where visitors sit on the floor and a worn-out couch casually discussing policy issues -- and board seven churning charter buses bound for the march on Washington.

The 400 participants are part of a group of more than 1,500 North Carolinians who will journey to the U.S. Capitol, where the pre-march rally could draw more than 300,000 people.

Nearly 200 people from Chapel Hill and Carrboro attended the protest in October that attracted about 100,000 -- a turnout officials said was the largest anti-war demonstration in Washington since the Vietnam protests of the 1970s.

Local organizers say that the event will be predominantly peaceful but that, as in the October protest, they will be met by counter-demonstrators who also plan to rally on the National Mall and then boisterously greet the protesters as they march to the gates of the Washington Navy Yard.

Nationally and on campus, the peace movement has escalated as military preparations for a possible war with Iraq have been stepped up.

At Internationalist Bookstore, preparations for the march have taken over normal business operations. For the past two weeks, the store has buzzed with energy as people have filed in nonstop asking for information about the bus tickets and the march. With the bookstore fielding nearly 100 calls a day, tickets for two of the buses sold out in one day.

"We haven't stocked the shelves or ordered books in over two weeks," said co-manager Christina Casto. "It has been a little exhausting. You can't finish a conversation without having the phone ring."

One of the buses leaving from Chapel Hill will be filled with Latino residents, a group that in the past has been largely unrepresented at peace rallies.

"I think if we go to war, immigrants' rights will continue to be eroded," said Carrboro Board of Aldermen member John Herrera, a Latino community leader who helped organized the bus. "Our rights are being threatened, and it is in our best interest to join with the peace movement."

With the buses sold out, Casto and others at the bookstore spearheading the local effort are helping to coordinate car pools to the demonstration.

At the national level, the protest is being coordinated by International A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism). It will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday with a brief rally on the west side of the Capitol building, followed by a march to the gates of the Washington Navy Yard, where organizers said they will gather to call for the elimination of U.S. weapons of mass destruction.

This weekend's demonstration will send a message to not only the nation's leaders but the world, said participant Scott O'Day, a junior music major.

"It is important to show opposition to war and that Bush is not acting on behalf of the American people."

The City Editor can be reached at citydesk@unc.edu.