Vassar students attend march in D.C.

Kelly Fitzgerald Guest Writer

Heather Lewis ’10, through Vassar’s Student Activist Union (SAU), led a group of students to Washington D.C. on Sept. 15 to protest the war in Iraq and demand immediate troop withdrawal.

According to protest’s organizers, the protest drew approximately 100,000 participants to the nation’s capital to demand an end to the war in Iraq. The event was coordinated by the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) coalition, a leading United States organization dedicated to promoting peace.

Jack Smith, an editor of the Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter, organized three buses from New Paltz to transport local activists to the protest site.

“There wasn’t enough time to get VSA [Vassar Student Association] funding through SAU,” Lewis said, “but in the future, we plan to cover all costs of transportation for students so that they may attend events such as this.”

An acompanying rally took place across from the White House and featured speakers from organizations including several veterans’ groups. The protesters, led by the Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace, marched from the down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol Building, where they group staged “a massive ‘die-in’ in front of the Capitol,” according to Lewis.

Like the last major anti-war protest in January, when tens of thousands marched to the National Mall, yesterday’s event came at a tense time in the fractious debate over the US mission in Iraq. President George W. Bush was not there to hear the protestors, having left the White House for Camp David in Maryland.

The protests came in the same week that General David Petraeus, the tactical leader in Iraq, gave his highly anticipated progress report to Congress. Two days before the protest, Bush announced that he would pull 5,700 troops out of Iraq by Christmas.

The protest officially began at noon at Lafayette Park on the north side of the White House with speeches from at least two dozen speakers including former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Cindy Sheehan and Ralph Nader. At 3 p.m., protesters began the “die-in” with a mock 21-gun salute.

The “die-in,’ a form of protest in which participants simulate death, was initially planned to take place on the steps of the Capitol Building; but as demonstrators attempted to break through the ranks of police officers, arrests occurred. The protest began peacefully but as the march progressed, tensions rose between protestors and police officers.

Over 190 protesters were arrested by the end of the event, charged with illegally crossing a police line.

According to Lewis, the Vassar students participating in the event were not vulnerable to arrest. “The people who ended up getting arrested were the ones that crossed the police barricades set up on the Capitol steps,” she said. “I don’t think any of us were fully prepared to go past that line, though some of us may have wanted to.”

“This was by far the largest and most momentous anti-war demonstration I have attended thus far,” said Lewis. “It felt so powerful to be marching in unity with 100,000 other people of all ages and backgrounds who share the same feelings about this war.”

The SAU hopes to raise political awareness on campus by sharing their experience with the Vassar community. “What stood out to me,” Lewis said, “was the large and impassioned youth presence there, which gives me hope for a growing student movement on college campuses.”