Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Tombstones




So, we've now had tombstone displays at UMSL, WashU, and SLU; and Fontbonne will be this Thursday. There was a cool slideshow posted today on StudLife about the WashU display and a photo (slide 1) with one of the world's most ridiculous quotes in the Post-Dispatch. What are people's thoughts about how the display went?

Also, check out these awesome photos by Dale!

Update: So now that Fontbonne is finished, I can report some of the results from the week. Overall, over 150 students signed up for peace groups during the displays at UMSL, SLU, WashU, and Fontbonne. We had media coverage from Fox 2 News, Channel 4 News, www.pubdef.net, the Post-Dispatch, and several of our student newspapers.

Two new student groups were formed that did not previously exist at UMSL and at Fontbonne. Fontbonne, in fact, did not have *any* student group on campus that worked on peace and justice issues (not even a College Dems) until Kathy started organizing the display.

We had hundreds if not thousands of students (and parents) come by our tables and wish us well. One woman called after seeing her grandson's name on the news to thank us for putting up a display honoring the troops.

Anyway, there were a lot of positives from the week.

2 comments:

Once the pen hit the pad it's dangerous said...

As one of the organizers of the tombstone display, waking up for the set-up, staying at the table, and then taking all of the tombstones out of the ground to be put away, it is all-too-easy to experience the whole display as a task rather than an eye-opening and emotional experience. As someone who thinks about the war and its costs sporadically throughout the day, it is still necessary to step back and pause to reflect on visuals such as these two thousand tombstones. Let me not forget the symbolism of each and every name and then, all the thousands of names not on the tombstones. Let me not forget the ultimate sacrifice made by those people, whether they chose to or not, whether they knew or not. Let us remember that every time the death toll increases, this is not simply the ratcheting up of a number, but the unfortunate truth that another person's life has ended. Let us keep the faces, the memories behind these names from fading into the shadows of a war that never should have been...

STLAH said...

So now that Fontbonne is finished, I can report some of the results from the week. Overall, over 150 students signed up for peace groups during the displays at UMSL, SLU, WashU, and Fontbonne. We had media coverage from Fox 2 News, Channel 4 News, www.pubdef.net, the Post-Dispatch, and several of our student newspapers.

Two new student groups were formed that did not previously exist at UMSL and at Fontbonne. Fontbonne, in fact, did not have *any* student group on campus that worked on peace and justice issues (not even a College Dems) until Kathy started organizing the display.

We had hundreds if not thousands of students (and parents) come by our tables and wish us well. One woman called after seeing her grandson's name on the news to thank us for putting up a display honoring the troops.

Anyway, there were a lot of positives from the week.