This from the Pulse of the Twin Cities:

On the afternoon of last March 19, following the big anti-war protest of the second anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, high school students from a dozen area schools crammed into the Loring Park Coffee House for a meeting of the newly-formed Youth Against War and Racism (YAWR).

An excited ninth grader from Bloomington suggested YAWR organize a walkout in April. After some discussion the group decided it was best to plan a walkout for the fall.

Seven months later, high school and college students from five cities across the country have formed YAWR chapters, including Boston, Mass., Oberlin, Ohio, and Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia, Wash. Other cities like Milwaukee and Madison, Wis., while not forming chapters thus far, have joined YAWR’s call to organize student walkouts on Nov. 2 (Bush’s “reelection

Apparently the Army Corps of Engineers had announced plans to widen the dam, and anyone remaining in town would find themselves under several fathoms of water. It seemed that the people of North Bonneville had to develop the political tools to overcome the rigidity of regulations and rules imposed on them by the Feds, which would have had the citizens of this town just relocate to the four winds. The community was tight-knit and did not want to disband.

In 1973 Russ and a group of students became involved in helping North Bonneville plan a new townsite on nearby land. Russ and his students helped the people of North Bonneville gain the skills to preserve their community. Those of us visiting in the following year had nothing to do with this project, Russ just wanted us to observe and learn, but that made no difference to the people of North Bonneville. We were from Evergreen, and that was good enough for them.

The Mayor hosted us and everyone was super friendly when they learned where we were from. I was expecting Rod Serling to emerge around the corner at any time, we were so used to used to being treated badly by the Olympia locals (a point of strange embarrassment to me, being an Olympia area local myself).

This was an early lesson for me on how grassroots political activity can have a positive effect, and how the system can be changed from within. And it was what Evergreen was supposed to be all about. Going out and changing the world for the better one step at a time.