An Activist Reflects On The Anti-War Movement in Towson

The Towson Anti-war Coalition had been doing a lot of stuff in the lead-up to the war, including teach-ins. Most of the members were also in TAG, the Towson Action Group. Right before the Iraq war started, our short-lived Baltimore County Anti-war Network merged with TAWC and just operated as one group. Previously Global Toxin (that was my group)/BCAWN we had picketed outside of the Ruhl Armory (National Guard) on York Road in Towson twice a week for the first few months of the Afghan war and then picketed once a week up until the start of the Iraq war. We had also gone to lots of larger demonstrations together. The FBI and Maryland Joint Terrorism Task Force made two visits to my house in the months around September 11th, and one visit to another member of Global Toxin’s house. It was related to animal rights activism, anti-war activism, Mumia support work, and anything else they could think of. 

Anyways, so the global call went out to shut down your hometown or city in the event of the invasion of Iraq. I remember handing out some flyers for it, but mostly the flyers were going around Towson’s campus (I was not a student). I remember one cop coming up to me as I went into work one morning, probably March 15th or so, and he said (they all knew me well) “Ryan, are you invovled in this?” and he handed me the flyer. I said “No, but it’s gonna happen I’m sure.”  He said to let him know if I heard anything else. That was funny, but it showed they were impressed and nervous about it all. 

We managed to make a good contact at Goucher College and we called a mass meeting with both student bodies and community activists. That meeting happened the night of March 19th, and after about one hour of discussion we watched on the TV on the wall as the Iraq war began. Tomorrow was the day.

So, we had prepared drums, banners, and signs and all. Nothing much more than that. A few of us walked out of work (myself included). Towson walked out with numbers reaching 200. I met up with them and we took York Road up to the circle. As we passed through downtown Towson, about 30 youth from Towson High 

School joined us, they had organized their own walkout and had to illegally walk past the school policeman to join us. But they did. Then Goucher, with numbers up in the mid 100s, walked up Dulaney Valley Road from their campus. All in all, even thought it was freezing raining, we had between 300 and 400 people with us the whole time. 

We walked around the circle long enough to tie traffic up good. They said on the radio to not even try driving near Towson, that anti-war protesters had shut it down. Mission Accomplished. 

So we marched down through town and out Bosley Ave. As we headed down towards York Road again, we got word from one of our student organizer contacts at Carver High School that the hundreds of students we thought were going to join us were locked in by administration and some police. We announced the news to the march. I was up front at the time and I remember a girl yelling “Let’s just march to Carver” and the crowd roared in response. So we walked down York to Carver and a few people tried to pull the doors open. I wish we had put up more of a fight. Students were hanging out the windows with peace signs and cheering. A girl escaped from her classroom trailer and joined us to a massive cheer. Then we left and returned up Dulaney Valley road to the circle, where we again held the space for up to two hours. We had students, professors, and community members make speeches here, and we sat or stood in the icey rain and listened. 

That was it, we went back to Towson and tried to figure out when to do next, like going down to join Baltimore’s protests. But we were tired. Our biggest failure in all of this was follow up, it was hard to top that. But we did what we set out to do, and we probably organized the largest and most bold demonstration in Towson’s history, maybe even Baltimore County’s. I can say without a doubt it was among the most powerful and real demonstrations I’ve been a part of. There was such an organic thing about it, and there was an energy level and a level of compassion and anger that you rarely see.