More than 100 students from N.C. State and Enloe and Southeast Raleigh high schools stood up and walked out of their classes and other activities at 11 a.m. Tuesday to rally against the Iraq War.

They gathered on the sidewalk, spilling over in to the grass by the Bell Tower.

Student Walk-Out Against War rallied for the four-year anniversary of the Iraq War, publicizing the event with fliers and a mass e-mail to the College Democrats Listserv and help from Fight Imperialism Stand Together.

Students for a Democratic Society held events at 82 universities, colleges and high school nationwide Tuesday, including State, Enloe, Southeast Raleigh, Cary, Green Hope and Raleigh Charter High Schools.

“A huge number of high schoolers came out. … [It’s] wonderful to see high school students engaging in the process,” Tara Ilsley, sophomore in political science and Spanish, said.

“There was a flier on my desk. I came just to see what’s going on,” Leigh Spahn, a senior in graphic design, said.

She said she is avidly against the war.

Other antiwar protesters waved signs, chanted and discussed the War in Iraq.

“I just think in terms of where we are now, we are already [in Iraq] … now we have to leave immediately, de-fund the war and get our troops out,” Ryan Wayne, a senior in art and design, said.

Ilsley said she agreed and stressed the significance of protest.

“It’s really important to protest against the war,” Ilsley said. “We voted for change in November. Now we need to do something about it.”

Dante Strobino, FIST member and graduate student in electrical engineering, said he has been speaking out against the war for four years.

As the students marched in front of the Bell Tower, whose door is inscribed with “and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,” four or five members of Campus Police were on hand.

Some police officials, who dressed in civilian attire, accompanied the protesters at all times during the rally and said they were “making sure protesters get safely to where they need to go.”

Tyneisha Bowens, a junior in psychology and women’s and gender studies, said she was approached by Campus Police and told that chanting would not be permitted in the Brickyard.

“We will [chant] anyway,” Bowens said.

Protesters chanted, “Troops home now!” and “Hey hey, ho ho, this racist war has got to go,” as they marched down Hillsborough Street from the Bell Tower to the entrance of the Free Expression Tunnel.

Seventy students arrived at the Free Expression Tunnel.

Enloe High School students immediately began painting the tunnel with spray paints and stencils made by Enloe sophomore Larkin Coffey.

“[This is] definitely something that really hits close to home,” Lukas Moisan, a sophomore at Enloe, said. “We feel extremely strongly.”

Many of the Enloe students said they had family and friends invested in the war.

Strobino called all the protesters together for a rally that capped off the event.

He spoke of the $200 billion spent on the war and challenged protesters to “feed the cities; stop the war.”

Several other protesters addressed the group, and Miles Holst, a junior in art and design and communication, announced plans to charter a Students for a Democratic Society club at State.

He said he hoped the chapter of SDS could be open to State students as well as all local Raleigh students.

SDS was active in the 1960s, was then disbanded in 1969 and reorganized on Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2006.

Holst said the resources with 30,000 well-educated — or soon-to-be well-educated — minds at the University were major factors in his decision to charter an SDS club.

The club has not yet filed a student organization form with the Student Organization Resource Center.

Tuesday was an “interest day” for the club, where students could sign up for an SDS Listserv, according to Holst.

The rally dismissed from there, and students returned to their routines.