On Saturday October 26, 24 members of the Bergen County EthicalCulture Society went to Washington DC to participate in a national day of protesting thepending war against Iraq.
The bus was chartered by the public affairs committee and was filled withmembers of our society and people referred to the society by NJ Peace Action.It was a fun and exhausting day. It began with a 5:30 am boarding time, in thecold and dark and rainy morning. Most of us slept on the way down. The busdropped us off in Silver Spring Marylandand we took the subway into downtown DC. We walked about 5 blocks to the rallysite, the Viet Nam War Memorial.
When we joined the rally it was already after 12:00 pm andthe sun had come out. As we rounded the corner to the rally site, we could notbelieve how many people were there. There were protestors for as far as the eyecould see. People from many organizations were there protesting the war and therange of posters and banners and buttons and t-shirt slogans was incredible.Speakers at the rally included Jesse Jackson, Susan Sarandon, students from theprotest movement and many others. At the end of the rally we walked to Constitution Avenueand joined in the loud and boisterous march. Along with tens of thousands ofothers, we held out posters high and chanted in support of peace and againstthe war.
The march took us all the way around the white house(although we could not get close enough to actually see the white house). Itwas a very peaceful crowd. By 4:00 pm that afternoon we left the march and tookthe subway back to the bus. On the way home we were exhilarated and exhausted!Check out the bulletin board in the lobby of the society building to see pictures of the day.
