Asheville, NC – When members of the University of North Carolina – Asheville Students for a Democratic Society (UNC-Asheville SDS) heard that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was coming to hold one of her lynch mob style rallies in Asheville, there was no question of organizing a protest. Workers, students and members of the Asheville community assembled outside of the Civic Center downtown. On Oct. 26, there was an outpouring of over 300 protesters who confronted Palin and her rally of supporters.

“Stop the war, yes we can! SDS is back again!” This was a popular chant heard around the country as students in high schools and colleges walked out of classes, held rallies, marches, teach-ins and other creative actions in response to the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) call for national coordinated student actions on March 20, the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War. The call was put out by SDS groups that met at the School of the Americas protest last November, where 100 students from 20 campuses voted unanimously to make March 20 a national day of student action against the war. Those 20 schools quickly became 83, as colleges and high schools from the Northeast to the Midwest, from West Coast to the South, signed on to the call.