Several dozen Georgetown students joined thousands of people marching on the White House Saturday as part of a massive protest calling on the United States and its allies to completely withdraw troops from Iraq.

Emotion ran high as anti-war activists from all over the country stood together while calling for peace and justice in Iraq. etropolitan Police Department officials said that over 100,000 protesters attended the demonstration, which lasted all day Saturday and featured a number of speeches, musical performances and booths dedicated to raising awareness of the Iraq war and other related issues.

Peace Action, a Georgetown group dedicated to supporting peace and justice, led the largest group of Georgetown students in a walk from the university to the Ellipse on the National Mall Saturday morning.

Farrah Farley (SFS ’06), a member of Peace Action, led chants calling for “Education Not Occupation,” and carried a banner reading “Georgetown Students Say No to Bush.”

“Our goal is to raise awareness on campus on peace-related issues,” she said.

Farley added that she is primarily concerned with what she said was the Israeli occupation of Palestine and with discrimination perpetuated by conflicts such as the war in Iraq.

Joe Sciarriloo (SFS ’06), another member of Peace Action, expressed concern over what he said were little-acknowledged Iraqi civilian deaths which outside media organizations have estimated to be as high as 29,000. He noted the importance of providing Georgetown students with opportunities to join in events such as Saturday’s protest in order to see their views expressed and meet others with similar concerns.

MaryKay Sopko said she traveled all the way from Columbus, Ohio, to visit her niece, a Georgetown student, and to attend the antiwar protest.

“I’m hoping to end this war,” she said. “I hope [the protest] makes the administration aware of how many people are against this war and that they need to get out of this war as soon as possible.”

The protest began with several speeches, including addresses by the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Cindy Sheehan-who led a vigil outside Bush’s Crawford, Texas, ranch last month-and Ramsey Clark, former attorney general under President Lyndon B. Johnson and founder of the Web site ImpeachBush.org.

People from all over the country took part in the protest, displaying their individual slogans and statements on a vast array of T-shirts and banners. “Bush Lied: Thousands Died,”Make Levees Not War,” and “Send Our Kids to College, Not Iraq,” were a few of their mottos. Groups ranging from the D.C. Poets Against War to the Pennsylvania Health Care Unit also came out to protest the Bush administration’s Iraq policy.

George Galloway, a member of the British Parliament and vice president of the U.K.-based Stop the War Coalition, called Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair war criminals and said that thousands of people were demonstrating against the war simultaneously in Britain.

As the speeches continued, the crowd often broke into chants of “No justice, no peace,” and “Impeach George Bush.” The protesters later joined an enormous march around the White House before attending the rest of the afternoon’s concerts and events.

Amelia Pelly (COL ’09), who said she opposes the conflict in Iraq, attended the protest and said she felt it was effective in raising awareness.

“I thought it was a good crowd,” she said. “It’s important to see that people aren’t satisfied with the way things are going.”

She said, however, that she felt that there was too great a discrepancy among the issues people attended the protest to support. Some in the crowd booed when speakers brought up Haiti and Israel.

In response to Saturday’s anti-war sentiment, a rally in support of the Bush administration’s policies was held on Sunday in front of the Capitol. The Georgetown College Republicans organized a group for the event, which lasted all afternoon.

Jay Ennis, chairman of the College Republicans, said he was pleased with the rally, during which several Georgetown students met up with other young Republicans from American and George Washington universities.

The rally featured several military veterans, active personnel and their families coming together to show support for the president and his policies and for soldiers abroad.

Though the people in attendance numbered significantly fewer than those at the previous day’s protest, reaching a few hundred at the most, Ennis said he felt their message was strong and that the voices of patriots had been heard.

“It is always much easier to criticize than it is to support,” he said.