Peace coalition leads march against Iraq war
March 18, 2008
Stephens College students Andrea Dame, Jessica Bell and Amber Davis march towards Peace Park in the 1,000 Strong For Peace demonstration Sunday. Demonstrators ranged from students to veterans.
Peace activists listen to the band The Melville Salon on Sunday in the Boone County Courthouse Square. Various musical groups and speakers participated in the demonstration to promote the Mid-Missouri Peaceworks’ 1,000 Strong For Peace, an annual event that marks the beginning of the war in Iraq.
Columbia resident Karen Brickey and her daughter carry signs calling for an end to the war in Iraq while marching with more than 1,000 other protesters on Sunday. The protest, organized by the Mid-Missouri Peaceworks, included more than 22 smaller organizations.
Renew Missouri volunteer Evan Prost signs a banner outside of Boone County Courthouse Square Sunday. The banner was signed by participants of the march and was carried from the Square to Peace Park.
Shante Melville sits with a peace-sign poster while her mother Hillary Melville plays in her band at the Boone County Courthouse Square before the march officially begins. Melville and her band traveled from California to play in Columbia for Sunday’s protest.
They came in packs.
Some pounded drums, others walked their dogs, but most simply arrived with their families, wheeling bundled babies before them. The brisk March afternoon’s atmosphere was electric. As some scattered, putting up signs and instrument stands, the rest set up petition-signing booths and tables for the sale of anti-war bumper stickers.
On Sunday, March 16, the Columbia Peace Coalition held “1,000 Strong for Peace,” a peace rally and march protesting U.S. involvement in Iraq. Meant to border the fifth anniversary of the conflict on March 19, it has been documented as Columbia’s largest protest in the history of the war.
“I’ve been an activist since I was six,” said Charlotte Lerner, a St. Louis cofounder of Women Strike for Peace, as she urged people to sign a petition. “This war has been bullshit from the very beginning. Until this war I was a pacifist, but there are some people in the world that if someone shot them in the head, I wouldn’t shed a tear.”
The square burst with passionate goals and instant solidarity. To the left, a small, curly-haired girl with a yellow beret held a peace sign above her tiny head. To the right her mother set up a microphone for her political poetry reading.
When the music finally began and the crown quieted, the voice of Lizzie West, who performed first along with Baba Buffalo, rang throughout the square, urging the “lovealution” she feels America needs.
As yells for change echoed through the amphitheater, performers’ assistants handed out small yellow ribbons to the crowd. According to West and her Holy Roads Tour, these ribbons were meant to symbolize the commitment audience members had to speak out against the war and legislation they disagree with.
As the audience members carefully tied each strand together, it became the center of the performance, as West referenced it in her final song, singing with the crowd’s help: “Tie a yellow ribbon ‘round Columbia. Something good has begun right here right now.”
The first speaker took the microphone with ease. John Baker spoke on behalf of his wife. Rep. Judy Baker, D-Columbia, who was unable to attend due to family circumstances.
“All good democracies depend on the consent of the governed, and I don’t consent to this haphazard war,” Baker said, reading from a speech his wife wrote for the event.
Baker continued on, in the midst of a cheering crowd with hard facts concerning the conflict in Iraq.
“The cost of this war is out of control — 12 billion dollars a month, plus countless lives,” he said. “The road to end this war will be tough, but it is what we must do.”
Responding to the approving crowd, Baker ended on a unifying note.
“Together we can bring change to Washington, Missouri, and America,” Baker said.
The announcer then introduced the next speaker: a “very brave woman,” as well as the president of the Missouri National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Mary Ratliff.
“We gather here today as citizens of the United States,” Ratliff said. “Our young men and women are fighting a war that they never should have been.”
Her voice rang through the square as listeners yelled, “that’s right” and “too long” in response to her statements.
“Let us make it perfectly clear we support our troops,” Ratliff said. “They deserve a hero’s welcome when they come home, and they were betrayed by their government. It’s never too late to correct a mistake. The best thing we can do to support our troops is to bring them home.”
Like Baker, she closed with a spark of solidarity.
“We’re here today because we stand for peace, and we believe we can end the war,” Ratliff said.
The final speaker, Iraqi-American peace activist Shakir Hamoodi, began with ringing words of “shalom” and “Salaam Alaykum” to the attentive audience. This warmness shortly turned to outrage, as he began heavily criticizing the United States’ war in Iraq.
“Three trillion dollars have been spent that would have built this country into a model for health care,” Hamoodi said. “Muslims are not your enemy brothers and sisters. Two million Iraqi children are without food, water and medicine. How long are we going to exercise this silence?”
After brief instruction, the march began. Fifteen protesters carried elaborately painted metal drums, which clanked loudly with every small touch. Before departing, the crowd practiced its chant of “We are one thousand strong. We’re here to say, war is wrong.”
With the police escort humming in the front, the crowd clamored from the Courthouse Square through Ninth Street, Elm Street and all the way to Peace Park.
The weather was in their favor, as cloudy patches dissolved in front of the sunlight. Soon the chant turned simply to drumming, laughter, and shouts for peace as onlookers pointed and took pictures. Finally, as the group rounded the corner to Peace Park, a small band of musicians awaited to lead the rally to a close.
In remembrance of the event that inspired its name, the rally ended in Peace Park, for it was in that very place that students, 36 years ago, protested the Vietnam War. The protest was in response to the killings of four students at Kent State University on May 4, 1970.
As the marchers quieted, performers Steve Jacobs, Larry Brown and Carolyn Mathews led the rally in many protest songs, including John Lennon’s “Imagine,” performed by Mathews on guitar.
After the musical unwind, event organizer Lily Tinker Fortel began her speech with a passionate voice, holding the attention of nearly 1,086 avid listeners.
“The power of one is far greater than the power of none,” Tinker Fortel said. “Nearly 40,000 U.S. soldiers are dead. Why are you here?”
The rally included many surprises, such as Army specialist Andrew Johnson, an MU student and former reserve soldier who recently backed out of the service.
“War doesn’t make any sense,” Tinker Fortel said. “Violence only leads to more violence. We’re all human beings.”
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