The low din of the road will hang in their ears. They’ll be tired and sore. They will step off the bus and into the masses gathered at our nation’s great capitol. Signs and costumes in tow, they will hit the streets with the fire of participant democracy, Iowa-style.

Tomorrow hundreds of Iowans join the hundreds of thousands amassing in Washington, DC to celebrate the nonviolent, direct action legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. in opposing a unilateral invasion of Iraq. Many of them are Iowa Staters and Ames natives and they’ll be joined by another four busloads of Iowans from around the state.

Just one bus was planned to take folks from Ames to the Capitol. Demand was so great that the organizers chartered a second Ames bus and it filled immediately. Two more full buses from Iowa City will make the journey. Decorah and Cedar Falls will send a full bus each. They are representatives of a local movement that has blossomed in recent months.

The Hawkeye state has come alive with citizens in action against war. Weekly vigils in Des Moines, Iowa City, Dubuque, and three in the Quad Cities are visible and growing. Vigils come twice every week in Ames. Signs of the movement come from pulpits, university classrooms and city councils, from small towns and college towns alike.

The religious community in Des Moines lobbied the city council for a symbolic anti-war resolution last month.

At least three hundred people stood up against war in Iraq in Ames along Lincoln Way during Finals Week.

The University of Iowa has its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Human Rights Week 2003 which includes a talk on Iraq by Barbara Nimri Aziz.

Two hundred were in Des Moines last spring for the all-Iowa anti-war convergence, with its demonstration, speakers and workshops. Iowa City alone claims several different organizations working against the war: Campaign Against War, Iowans for Peace, Citizens Opposed to War in Iraq and a local chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility.

But don’t dare count rural Iowa out, folks. It’s not restricted to hardened organizers or activists in college towns.

A student newsletter from the Ballard Community School District in Huxley included a snapshot of the war opinion in the school. Of the handful of students and teachers featured, all but one spoke against an invasion.

Many members of groups in Iowa City and Ames make the journey in from surrounding rural communities to take part in vigils.

For those not headed east, Des Moines will have a march organized by a sociologist at Grand View College to speak out on the King holiday.

There’s another one in the Quad Cities this weekend.

One of the marchers in Washington will be more sore than the rest of them. He’s Jon Meier of Spring Valley, Minn. The Iowa State senior in religious studies has been walking the last three weeks for peace and made it from Ames to Washington. He’ll meet the Ames folks and ride the bus back home for his last semester.

Jon met with church leaders including the United Methodist Bishop of Indiana and was featured in numerous newspapers and TV news programs as he passed through the area. The Des Moines Register and KCCI-TV featured him as well as the Dayton Daily News, Rochester Post-Bulletin, and Springfield State Journal-Register among others. Jon’s made headlines in the Register before when he was arrested engaging in civil disobedience with Nicholos Wethington and Michael Faris, also Time for Peace members, at the Iowa Air National Guard headquarters in Des Moines.

Jon said his walking journey to D.C. was a spiritual one for which M.K. Gandhi’s 1930 salt march provided some inspiration. He garnered the attention of activists nationwide with a posting on unitedforpeace.org, one of the main Web sites for the movement. People offered him support, a place to stay or money.

At this holiday weekend, Iowa’s movement against invading Iraq is in full bloom. Martin Luther King Jr. was a champion of nonviolent conflict. It’s difficult, dangerous and often slow.

However, its effectiveness is characterized by courageous acts of nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience throughout history. Such a struggle is not passive, but tough and direct.

From our small towns to university centers, Iowa patriots are seeing through a proposed war, influenced by a corporate thirst for oil and war industry pressure. Iowans are telling their elected officials to allay, not inflame possible threats of violence.

It’s our duty to join with the growing numbers of Iowans saying “no” to an Iraq war this holiday. Let us pay this tribute to Dr. King.

Omar Tesdell is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Slater.