I'm standing shoulder to shoulder in a crowd of hundreds of thousands of American men and women from all over the country. We're massed on the lawn of the Whitehouse late morning on Saturday, September 24, 2005. While much of the Gulf States were bracing for another hurricane, we were getting geared up to march for peace. To end the war in Iraq. And to end the conflict in Israel. As I looked back and forward through the throngs of people, I was empowered to see the great diversity of people who made the trip to D.C. to take part in this historic event. Men, women, children, and people of every conceivable ethnicity were present. There were multitudes of signs with slogans like "George Bush, Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina . . . All Disasters," "War is a lack of Imagination," "Impeach Bush," "Who Would Jesus Bomb," and so many others. Buses rolled in from every state in the union sponsored by groups like Answer Coalition, United for Peace and Justice, Neighbors for Peace, Impeach Bush.org, etc. In many cases, buses were sponsored by community groups of like minded individuals who just needed to be there and make their voices heard. I had never seen so many people united for a cause in all my life. We listened to speeches delivered by Rev. Jesse Jackson, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Elias Rashmawi: National Council of Arab Americans, Ben Dupuy: Former Ambassador At Large for the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Malik Rahim: New Orleans community activist who survived Hurricane Katrina, Cindy Sheehan, Wesley Clark, George Galloway: British Member of Parliament, Jos Williams: President, President of the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO, Curtis Muhammed: Community Labor Union of New Orleans, Peta Lindsay: Youth and Student A.N.S.W.E.R. Student, Howard University student, Jeanette Caceres: Spoken word artist from New York University, and representatives from the two major groups who organized the event: A.N.S.W.E.R. and United for Peace and Justice. Then we took to the streets of Washington D.C. A river of protestors chanting slogans like "What does democracy look like? I'm what democracy looks like!," "Impeach Bush," "What do we want? Peace! When do we want it? Now!" The march route took us from the Washington Monument grounds passed the Whitehouse and throughout downtown D.C. We effectively shut down all transit in the city. They're were protestors everywhere, as far as the eye could see. There were so many people that the protest line moved in a slow step by step progression. There were people lining the route from end to end, spilling out from city buildings and hotels, intersecting the route from sidestreets. Our contingent became especially vigilant in front of the Whitehouse where chanting became feverish and people screamed for peace. As the day ended, we reconvened on the Whitehouse lawn for a concert featuring Joan Baez and other socially minded musicians. On September 24, 2005, the American voice was heard resoundingly. The American people's presence was felt.
Going into this event, I didn't really know what to expect. I had frivolously been trying to come up with a plan for my birthday weekend. Last year, I had gone to New York City and this year wanted to plan something as fun. It was my friend Jamie who initially told me about the march and the local group out of Evanston that was sponsoring a bus to get there. I hesitated to make a commitment to going for a couple of weeks, but soon decided that I needed to take part in this and that it would be the best thing I could do with my b-day weekend. I traveled on a fairly uncomfortable bus for 15 hours each way through the night making a few stops and eating the worse possible food. However, none of that mattered because I was with an amazing group of people who had come together from all across Chicago. I was amongst people from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and ethnicity who were united for a cause. My friends Jamie, Cathy, and I also had the opportunity to visit both the WWII Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. We walked from end to end of our nations capital and at the end of the day knew there was no better way to have spent 8 hours in a day.
