If anyone in St. Louis should know anything about how to throw a proper protest it would be Percy Green. A veteran of civil rights fights in St. Louis since the 1960s, Green has been arrested, has had successes and failures and knows that many activist groups, irregardless of the cause, are often fighting the same foe. He proposes, why not fight together?

Green was offering this and other sage advice to the Peace Economy Project Friday when he was a guest speaker at their event Friday at the World Community Center on North Skinker.

Green drew on his 47 years of activism, including recounting his famous climbing of the Gateway Arch during its construction to protest the lack of black laborers on the project.

Some of Green’s advice to current and aspiring activists:

• “Young people are going to be young people.” - Green advised those who are older and were involved in protest movements of the past to not get frustrated with their younger counterparts who’s participation my ebb and flow based on outside influences like marriage or starting a family. Rather than get out of sorts he advises organizations “do what little bit we can do and stay focused.”

• “The movement is just like other parts of nature. Some of us know that you need rain. Rain is very necessary if you want vegetation to grow.” - Green’s metaphor continued, adding that to get rain necessitates clouds, but not every cloud means rain, but that it’s not going to rain on a blue sky day. Translation: Despite some stagnation in progress, organizations need to keep up their work as diligently as possible. The right chemistry could come along at anytime to make their work dynamic, but they’re are guaranteed to not get that dynamic if they don’t keep their apparatus, their “clouds” up, out and visible.

• Emotion. Green said the main thing that will bring new people suddenly into a protest movement is emotion, mainly anger or hostility towards a recent injustice. While some might blanche at working with the raw emotions of others, Green said he’d rather have this fire directed properly through guidance and organization. “You know how to organize a picket line. What to say in a megaphone,” Green said on helping young people channel their anger into progress.

• “We can still learn from the young folks. The Young folks can learn from us.” - Green said the protest movement is at a junction point with the youth having knowledge and expertise in technology and the older generation knowing how to organize and protest.

Anti-war group St. Louis Instead of War Coalition will have a protest in Clayton Wednesday, marking the anniversary of the Iraq War, which began this week five years ago.

Several hundred war protesters will stand in-between the two-and-a-half blocks from Senator Christopher “Kit” Bond’s office at the corner of Hanley and Bonhomme to the office of a Boeing subcontractor in the 7700 block of Forsyth.

The protest will last from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

The anti-war group is calling for an end to all funding for the war with the exception of money to withdraw troops from the region. The group also wants the US government to commit funds to the reconstruction of Iraq through international organizations once the withdrawal is complete.

This protest is in conjunction with similar protests that will take place throughout the country Wednesday.

Protesters are singling out Sen. Bond because of his connections with Boeing and other military contractors. The group claims Bond has received half-a-million dollars in campaign contributions from these companies, more than any other senator.

This afternoon, more than 200 Washington University students and St. Louis citizens gathered together to protest former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as he came to speak at Washington University.

Gonzales was invited to speak by the Wash. U. College Republicans, who, in conjunction with the Wash. U. Student Union executive board, paid him $30,000 to speak. Students and community members upset with the decision of the Wash. U. groups and the actions of Alberto Gonzales protested outside of the building.

Protesters marched up Delmar and Big Bend dressed in orange jumpsuits like the one worn by prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison shouting “Stop torture now, A-L-B-E-R-T-O, shut down Guantanamo” and other chants chastising the actions of Gonzales. While some protesters wanted to “let Washington University know that they have made a bad mistake in paying Mr. Gonzales to speak,” others agreed with the decision to bring him to Wash. U. but still wanted to make sure that people understood the problems with his views on torture and disregard for the Geneva Conventions.

In his speech, Gonzales addressed the protesters by mentioning that oftentimes some of the biggest protesters don’t even vote. He challenged protesters and students alike to “step into the arena” and serve their country. Gonzales said he “disagreed with those who say [Americans] have lost our way,” and explained that he believed current United State enemies did not deserve all the specific protections of the Geneva Conventions because they were not fighting lawfully. When asked how he would react to American soldiers being waterboarded, Gonzales said there was a distinction between American soldiers and their enemies because American soldiers fight lawful wars. As a result, his reaction to waterboarding American soldiers would be, “Don’t do that. Shouldn’t do that.”

Gonzales received a combination of boos and applause for his speech and was interrupted once by a sophomore who shouted “Perjurer, you broke the law; You should be in jail,” before walking out of the speech.