I was surprised to find no mention of Saturday's Washington D.C. anti-war rally in Monday's Collegian. Strangely, there was only an article about the much-smaller Sunday rally.

Saturday's rally was explicitly in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s struggle against violence and injustice around the world. According to the Washington Post, the rally drew between 200,000 and 500,000 participants from all over the country, including myself.

The march was planned to be on this weekend not only to protest President Bush's desire for war, but also to celebrate the tradition of King, who was not only an activist against racial discrimination, but an activist against all forms of oppression and violence. He spoke out directly against U.S. foreign policy in Vietnam. We shouldn't water down King's legacy for the sake of unreflective, apple-pie patriotism.

My friend and I drove down to the D.C. rally on Friday night. At the rally, in front of the Capitol, there were all kinds of people, who, despite the bitter cold, stayed outside for hours.

We listened to speeches from civil rights leaders, congresswomen, and ministers of all faiths. After words,
the short two mile march from the
Capitol to the Navy Yard took two
hours, because there were so many people.

At the famous pub The Hawk and Dove we met a married couple from Pittsburgh, one an accountant, the other a physical therapist. We talked about our frustration with the extremist war hawks, and our hope that this march of ordinary Americans might accomplish some good. That was our all too common hope.