Civil rights leader boosts war protesters

By ANGELA K. BROWN,
Associated Press

CRAWFORD, Texas - The Rev. Joseph Lowery on Sunday urged war protesters camping near President Bush's ranch to keep working for peace.

Lowery, 84, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., spoke at a sunrise interfaith Easter Sunday service.

Lowery said after the service that he sees many parallels between the civil rights movement and the peace movement, and so he decided to miss a traditional Easter church service for the first time.

"Being out here in nature with people struggling for peace and justice, in the shadow of the president's ranch, what better place could there be to celebrate Easter?" he said. "Hope is alive in this place."

Lowery spoke on the last day of the group's third protest in less than a year near Bush's ranch. Bush spent the holiday at Camp David, his first Easter away from the ranch since he was elected.

Cindy Sheehan, whose soldier son, Casey, died in Iraq in 2004, started protesting in ditches off the two-lane road leading to Bush's ranch in August during his working vacation.

The vigil attracted thousands of fellow demonstrators and grew to a second, larger camp on a private lot where the group returned for a Thanksgiving week protest and the Easter week activities.

The peace vigil also drew scores of counter protests by Bush supporters who said Sheehan was disgracing fallen soldiers and hurting troop morale.

But Sheehan, who plans to return to Crawford in August, said she believes the anti-war demonstrations have made a difference.

"I feel we have come so far, and everything that's happened is validating what we started in August," she said Sunday. "But we can't rest."