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Students stage peaceful protestBy TOM ZUCCO, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
ST. PETERSBURG -- It wasn't your father's antiwar campus protest. Nearly 300 Eckerd college students and a handful of faculty members staged a peaceful, noon rally Wednesday to protest America's military involvement in Iraq. There were no water cannons, tear gas or students taking over the president's office. In fact, Eckerd president Donald Eastman was among the crowd listening to the music, speeches and theater presentations. "This is a very healthy thing," he said. The rally was part of a nationwide protest involving more than 300 colleges and universities organized by the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition. At Eckerd, a liberal arts college with an enrollment of about 1,500, students left their classrooms, marched around dorms and classrooms and assembled at the center of the campus. They beat on drums, chanted antiwar slogans and carried signs that read "We Have Guided Missiles And Misguided Men" and "Stop Mad Cowboy Disease." "I should be writing my anthropology thesis," said Julie Zollmann, 21, a senior who helped organize the event. "But I felt a moral obligation to do this." After speaking to the crowd, Dr. Bill Felice, 52, a political science professor, said rallies are evidence that college students can still be a viable voice of dissent. "They're not being drafted," Felice said. "Their concern centers around the loss of civilian lives and the stability of the world." But not everyone was so moved. Dressed in dusty jeans and work boots, a white hard hat and an "Osama bin Laden: Wanted Dead or Alive" T-shirt, Mitchell Booth watched the protesters circle the area where his crew was helping build a new library. "They should bring the draft back," said Booth, 44, of Clearwater. "That'll mess 'em up." The father of three's oldest son is in the Army. "It really irks me," he said. "They don't know how good they have it here." Thousands around world join in antiwar rallies Thousands of students around the country and the world walked out of class Wednesday to protest a war with Iraq, joining rallies that ranged from a few quiet demonstrators to crowds that erupted into shouting matches. It could not be determined how many American students participated, and the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition had no immediate estimate. The group said earlier that tens of thousands of students at more than 350 high schools, colleges and universities had pledged to join. Thousands of students rallied in Britain, Sweden, Spain, Australia and other countries. Teens chanting "No war for oil" staged a rowdy sit-in outside Tony Blair's official residence in London, warning the British prime minister that soon they will be voters. -- Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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