Thousands of people are expected to converge on Atlanta on Saturday, April 1, for the Southern regional "march for peace in Iraq and justice at home," according to organizers.

About 75 Alabamians will meet in Birmingham to take the "Peace Bus" to this event, including riders from Birmingham, Huntsville, Montgomery, Anniston and smaller towns around the state, accirdubg to Diane McNaron.

The bus going to Atlanta will leave Saturday morning at 7:30 a.m. from the Ullman parking lot at UAB between 12th Street and 13th Street South on University Blvd. The bus will stop in Oxford/Anniston to pick up riders as well.

In Atlanta, marchers will gather at the King Center at noon and march to Piedmont Park for a rally. Headlining the list of almost two dozen speakers will be Representative John Conyers of Michigan; Dr. Joseph Lowery, convenor of the Coalition for the People’s Agenda; U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney; Ann Wright, former U.S. Army colonel and diplomat who resigned in opposition to the Iraq war; and Damu Smith, cofounder of Black Voices for Peace.

Organizers promise a "vibrant, colorful" march with giant puppets, hundreds of signs and banners and drumming groups of different cultures. Exhibits at the rally will include “Eyes Wide Open,” created by the American Friends Service Committee, hundreds of combat boots and civilian shoes commemorating the 300 plus US National Guard and 100,000 plus Iraqi civilian war deaths; the Iraq Memorial Wall with the names of 2200 plus U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq; and a 500-foot Peace Ribbon honoring slain U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

The April 1 date was chosen because it falls between two anniversaries: The U.S. attack on Iraq on March 19, 2003, and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968.

“Dr. King knew that poverty, hunger, homelessness and lack of health care in America would never be solved as long as thousands of lives were being wasted on war,” said Rev. Timothy McDonald of First Iconium Baptist Church of Atlanta. “He knew that cities and levees could not be rebuilt while billions of dollars were being spent on destruction.”

Over 125 peace, civil rights, faith, student, labor, veterans and other groups from six Southern states (including the Alabama Peace and Justice Coalition) have endorsed the march, including Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Concerned Black Clergy of Metropolitan Atlanta; Atlanta-North Georgia Labor Council; United Auto Workers Region 8; Military Families Speak Out; Iraq Veterans Against the War; the Democratic Party of Cherokee, Gwinnett and Harris Counties (GA); People's Hurricane Relief Fund; and student groups at Decatur, Grady and Paideia high schools and at Georgia State University, University of West Georgia, Oxford College and University of Tennessee.

Many groups will be represented at the march, including the National Lawyers Guild, the North Alabama Peace Network, the Alabama Peace and Justice Coalition, the Birmingham Peace Project, NOW Central Alabama Chapter, Alliance for Democracy, The Politically Incorrect Cabaret, The Campaign to End the Occupation, The Birmingham Freethought Society and the Progressive Democrats of America, Alabama Chapter.

More information about this event is available online at Georgia Peace.Org