By Tyler Harbert
LAWRENCE, Kan. - Jon Dennis didn’t get arrested during spring break for indecent exposure or public intoxication.
The University of Kansas senior was taken to a Washington, D.C., police station for praying in front of the White House during the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq march on March 16 during the four-year anniversary of the Iraq War.
Before the march, participants sat in on any of 14 different workshops at various churches in Washington, D.C., which dealt with the interface of peace, faith and civil disobedience.
Some demonstrators used that training later that night when they were arrested for stopping and praying in front of the White House.
After the workshops and a non-denominational church service, an estimated 3,000 people held lights that resembled candles, marched and sang while they walked from the National Cathedral to the White House. Some stopped to pray in front of the building while others circled it.
The first 100 people who stopped to pray in front of the White House were arrested for failing to comply with an officer for refusing to keep moving.
The remaining 122 people who stopped, including Dennis, were arrested for crossing a police barrier.
Dennis said there was a lot of cooperation between the protest organizers and the police and that the route to the White House was blocked off for the march.
All 222 arrested people had their hands zip-tied with plastic bands and had their mug shots taken in front of buses that transported them to a local police department. They were given $100 tickets that had to be paid in person at a Washington, D.C., police department within 15 days.
Drizzling rain and brisk winds made the march uncomfortable for the protesters. Sonia
Marcinkowski, Blue Springs, Mo., junior, also marched but decided the weather was too unpleasant to wait around.
“I didn’t want to lose my toes,” she said. The next day, March 17, Dennis took part in a
larger anti-war march from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to the Pentagon. He said that the protesters in that march were more hostile than in Friday’s march.
“It wasn’t as moving and it was really negative,” he said.
Dennis received sponsorship from the Oread Friends Meeting, a Quaker religious organization, as well as some help from the Ecumenical Christian Ministries.
Dennis, Marcinkowski and Beth Ruhl, a sophomore who also took part in the peace march, plan to speak at local churches and share their experiences.