Anti-war Youth Activism Explodes
March 17, 2005
As goes Greensboro, so goes the nation.
Dont believe me? Greensboro, N.C. is a bellwether for the pulse of students across the country. This southern city has seven colleges and universities in its metropolitan area. These schools range in size and political temperament from the small and liberal Guilford and Bennett Colleges to larger, more conservative institutions such as Elon University and University of North Carolina-Greensboro (UNCG). As a whole, Greensboro and Guilford County are also a good microcosm of the country. Mostly rural North Carolina voted for Bush, but more urban Guilford County and Greensboro narrowly voted for Kerry. Greensboro also attracts lots of out-of-state students – for example, two-thirds of Guilford Colleges students are out of state, letting us have our finger on the pulse of the nation.
And somethings happening here. Im a sophomore at Guilford and theres an energy here that I havent seen in nearly two years of organizing on this campus. Since late January, our campus has been consumed by organizing for a large demonstration against the Iraq War in nearby Fayetteville (home of Ft. Bragg ) on March 19. In our first two days of tabling, we signed up 80 students to attend the march. Students are engaged and determined to take action on Iraq.
This specific demonstration that were working toward is unusual as well. It will bring together military families, veterans, and their supporters for a rally calling for the United States to bring the troops home and end the war. Thats unusual because most in our activist community dont identify with military families and veterans, for several reasons. First, Guilford is a Quaker school, and many in our activist community are pacifists. Cultural and class conflicts have often made our organizing more fragmented than it should be. Yet, a higher number than usual of our students (compared to other actions) are not only committed to going to the demonstration, but are actively organizing on our campus as well.
For example, we are reaching more and more students who are natives of the South. Some of the main leaders of our organizing committee for the March 19th action were born and raised in Greensboro. A specific person who signed up to get involved recently stands out in my mind this guy, an adult education student at Guilford, is a native of North Carolina who is a semi-retired 11-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps and drives race cars for a living. You dont get much more red state than that.
His and other veterans involvement in the movement reflect a main theme of the demonstration that is set for March 19. The peace movement is generally seeing more people who are directly affected by the war, namely veterans and their families, speaking out.
Anecdotes from Guilford are, of course, not the best determinant of the level of student activism in Greensboro. After all, Guilford is a Quaker school with a strong history of progressive political action. Yet, something is happening across Greensboro as well. Students are organizing on all seven campuses for this demonstration. For the first time we are actively coordinating our work by forming the Greensboro Student Action Coalition (GSAC). The coalitions first big event, a teach-in connecting student activism to the peace work of military veterans, drew over 50 student activists from across Greensboro to network and strategize around ending the war. This event also attracted widespread attention from local media, which doesnt often happen at progressive events in Greensboro.
Its been really incredible, notes Liz Nemitz, a senior at Guilford who has been involved in the coalition since its inception. Were doing work with kids at University North Carolina-Greensboro, Bennett, and Agriculture and Technical University in Greensboro that we never had worked with before, and its brought a whole new perspective to our organizing – we see ourselves as a college town rather than in individual bubbles.
Ive seen what Liz says is true – for the first time, Ive found myself leaving Guilfords campus to go do outreach on other, more conservative campuses where organizers are needed. Its brought me a whole new level of respect for activists on those campuses, activists who work hard under difficult circumstances.
Some of the work in Greensboro has come about as a result of local organizing by the Beloved Community Center, a group that works on economic and racial justice issues. Trends nationally, however, point to increasing concern and student activism around Iraq. For example, many thousands of young people turned out to protest President George W. Bushs inauguration on Jan. 20. Thousands more participated in a massive nationwide student strike that occurred in a diverse group of schools including Seattle Central Community College, Paideia High School in Atlanta, Ga., and Boulder High in Colorado.
I may be only 20 years old, but Ive been an organizer since 2002. Speaking from my experience in organizing for the Jan. 20 demonstration, I found that folks who had not been active politically before were motivated to demonstrate. Polling also suggests that youth are fearful of a draft (when the question is asked, about 80 percent of young people are against reinstating conscription) and turning against the war in droves.
Student activism around Iraq is not new. Students played a key role in the peace movement prior to the invasion of Iraq, with the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition organizing a major student strike on March 5 of 2003. After the invasion, however, student activism seemed to drop off a bit. Organizations like the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition that had worked on the student strike got less press attention that they did before the war, even when compared to the attention that was given to other peace groups like United for Peace and Justice during the same period after the invasion. According to an article by Richard Moreno for Z Magazine, most of the schools that had large walkouts on Jan. 20 of this year were not the same schools that had seen large protests on March 5, 2003. Moreno goes on to correctly note that one fact this trend shows is that much of the work that happened before the war did not sustain itself, or resurface until this year.
So why now are more students getting involved in Iraq-related issues? There are several reasons why student activism is bubbling up now. Many of the reasons are pretty obvious: for example, it has become clear that the Bush administration lacks an exit strategy in Iraq , and young people fear a draft. However, I believe there is one major reason that youth have turned to acting against the war that has been overlooked by many commentators: the 2004 election.
For some political analysts and activists, there were no positive long- or short-term outcomes of the 2004 elections as they relate to the antiwar movement. Such analysts particularly decry the involvement of youth in the campaigns of Kucinich, Kerry, and Dean. Cat Geary, student outreach coordinator for March 19, argues, Young activists began to silence themselves, instead expending their energy campaigning for Kerry, a pro-war candidate. This left the mainstream debate without an anti-war position. What activists such as Geary fail to see is that youth activism around the election prepared a shift in youth culture that will greatly benefit the peace movement.
Unlike many activists on the left, however, youth did not despair in the dark winter of December 2004. There was no talk of running to Canada, or giving up on politics altogether. Instead, we kept up the energy that had grown in 2004 and looked for other places to put it.
Many went back to their work in soup kitchens and homeless shelters, but with a new sense that advocacy and politics matter. John Wilson Irwin, a Greensboro student who hails from a low-income neighborhood in Memphis who now is an activist with the Greensboro Housing Coalition, notes, I see connections between the fact that people in Greensboro dont have adequate housing and the fact that were spending billions of dollars on a pointless war.
The 2004 elections were, in many obvious ways, a defeat for the left. But pessimistic analysts who see it as a total defeat are ignoring cultural shifts and long-term trends that are poised to benefit the peace movement and the wider progressive political community. In particular, youth activism around the election prepared a shift in youth culture that will greatly benefit the peace movement in 2005 and beyond.
To learn more about anti-war activism taking place this weekend, visit United for Peace and Justice.
As goes Greensboro, so goes the nation.
Dont believe me? Greensboro, N.C. is a bellwether for the pulse of students across the country. This southern city has seven colleges and universities in its metropolitan area. These schools range in size and political temperament from the small and liberal Guilford and Bennett Colleges to larger, more conservative institutions such as Elon University and University of North Carolina-Greensboro (UNCG). As a whole, Greensboro and Guilford County are also a good microcosm of the country. Mostly rural North Carolina voted for Bush, but more urban Guilford County and Greensboro narrowly voted for Kerry. Greensboro also attracts lots of out-of-state students – for example, two-thirds of Guilford Colleges students are out of state, letting us have our finger on the pulse of the nation.
And somethings happening here. Im a sophomore at Guilford and theres an energy here that I havent seen in nearly two years of organizing on this campus. Since late January, our campus has been consumed by organizing for a large demonstration against the Iraq War in nearby Fayetteville (home of Ft. Bragg ) on March 19. In our first two days of tabling, we signed up 80 students to attend the march. Students are engaged and determined to take action on Iraq.
This specific demonstration that were working toward is unusual as well. It will bring together military families, veterans, and their supporters for a rally calling for the United States to bring the troops home and end the war. Thats unusual because most in our activist community dont identify with military families and veterans, for several reasons. First, Guilford is a Quaker school, and many in our activist community are pacifists. Cultural and class conflicts have often made our organizing more fragmented than it should be. Yet, a higher number than usual of our students (compared to other actions) are not only committed to going to the demonstration, but are actively organizing on our campus as well.
For example, we are reaching more and more students who are natives of the South. Some of the main leaders of our organizing committee for the March 19th action were born and raised in Greensboro. A specific person who signed up to get involved recently stands out in my mind this guy, an adult education student at Guilford, is a native of North Carolina who is a semi-retired 11-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps and drives race cars for a living. You dont get much more red state than that.
His and other veterans involvement in the movement reflect a main theme of the demonstration that is set for March 19. The peace movement is generally seeing more people who are directly affected by the war, namely veterans and their families, speaking out.
Anecdotes from Guilford are, of course, not the best determinant of the level of student activism in Greensboro. After all, Guilford is a Quaker school with a strong history of progressive political action. Yet, something is happening across Greensboro as well. Students are organizing on all seven campuses for this demonstration. For the first time we are actively coordinating our work by forming the Greensboro Student Action Coalition (GSAC). The coalitions first big event, a teach-in connecting student activism to the peace work of military veterans, drew over 50 student activists from across Greensboro to network and strategize around ending the war. This event also attracted widespread attention from local media, which doesnt often happen at progressive events in Greensboro.
Its been really incredible, notes Liz Nemitz, a senior at Guilford who has been involved in the coalition since its inception. Were doing work with kids at University North Carolina-Greensboro, Bennett, and Agriculture and Technical University in Greensboro that we never had worked with before, and its brought a whole new perspective to our organizing – we see ourselves as a college town rather than in individual bubbles.
Ive seen what Liz says is true – for the first time, Ive found myself leaving Guilfords campus to go do outreach on other, more conservative campuses where organizers are needed. Its brought me a whole new level of respect for activists on those campuses, activists who work hard under difficult circumstances.
Some of the work in Greensboro has come about as a result of local organizing by the Beloved Community Center, a group that works on economic and racial justice issues. Trends nationally, however, point to increasing concern and student activism around Iraq. For example, many thousands of young people turned out to protest President George W. Bushs inauguration on Jan. 20. Thousands more participated in a massive nationwide student strike that occurred in a diverse group of schools including Seattle Central Community College, Paideia High School in Atlanta, Ga., and Boulder High in Colorado.
I may be only 20 years old, but Ive been an organizer since 2002. Speaking from my experience in organizing for the Jan. 20 demonstration, I found that folks who had not been active politically before were motivated to demonstrate. Polling also suggests that youth are fearful of a draft (when the question is asked, about 80 percent of young people are against reinstating conscription) and turning against the war in droves.
Student activism around Iraq is not new. Students played a key role in the peace movement prior to the invasion of Iraq, with the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition organizing a major student strike on March 5 of 2003. After the invasion, however, student activism seemed to drop off a bit. Organizations like the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition that had worked on the student strike got less press attention that they did before the war, even when compared to the attention that was given to other peace groups like United for Peace and Justice during the same period after the invasion. According to an article by Richard Moreno for Z Magazine, most of the schools that had large walkouts on Jan. 20 of this year were not the same schools that had seen large protests on March 5, 2003. Moreno goes on to correctly note that one fact this trend shows is that much of the work that happened before the war did not sustain itself, or resurface until this year.
So why now are more students getting involved in Iraq-related issues? There are several reasons why student activism is bubbling up now. Many of the reasons are pretty obvious: for example, it has become clear that the Bush administration lacks an exit strategy in Iraq , and young people fear a draft. However, I believe there is one major reason that youth have turned to acting against the war that has been overlooked by many commentators: the 2004 election.
For some political analysts and activists, there were no positive long- or short-term outcomes of the 2004 elections as they relate to the antiwar movement. Such analysts particularly decry the involvement of youth in the campaigns of Kucinich, Kerry, and Dean. Cat Geary, student outreach coordinator for March 19, argues, Young activists began to silence themselves, instead expending their energy campaigning for Kerry, a pro-war candidate. This left the mainstream debate without an anti-war position. What activists such as Geary fail to see is that youth activism around the election prepared a shift in youth culture that will greatly benefit the peace movement.
Unlike many activists on the left, however, youth did not despair in the dark winter of December 2004. There was no talk of running to Canada, or giving up on politics altogether. Instead, we kept up the energy that had grown in 2004 and looked for other places to put it.
Many went back to their work in soup kitchens and homeless shelters, but with a new sense that advocacy and politics matter. John Wilson Irwin, a Greensboro student who hails from a low-income neighborhood in Memphis who now is an activist with the Greensboro Housing Coalition, notes, I see connections between the fact that people in Greensboro dont have adequate housing and the fact that were spending billions of dollars on a pointless war.
The 2004 elections were, in many obvious ways, a defeat for the left. But pessimistic analysts who see it as a total defeat are ignoring cultural shifts and long-term trends that are poised to benefit the peace movement and the wider progressive political community. In particular, youth activism around the election prepared a shift in youth culture that will greatly benefit the peace movement in 2005 and beyond.
To learn more about anti-war activism taking place this weekend, visit United for Peace and Justice.
