Evanston has long been a whistle-stop on the tour of anti-war activism. Now, as Cindy Sheehan prepares to speak there Saturday, longtime peaceniks, their hair graying and their kids in college, are mobilizing again--this time in opposition to the Iraq war.

They have held candlelight vigils to mark the 1,000th day of the war and the 2,000th American death. They have hosted bus riders en route to Washington to protest the war.

"Lots of us are old-time activists," said Dickelle Fonda, 56, a co-founder of the North Shore Anti-War Coalition, an alliance of some 15 separate peace groups. "I look at the folks who are putting energy in this, and many of us go way back."

Some of them were at the forefront of the fight to end the Vietnam War. Others fought for women's rights and civil rights or to halt the nuclear arms race or the wars in Central America.

Sheehan, who lost her son, Casey, in the Iraq war, will speak at the Lake Street Church with local anti-war activist Juan Torres, whose son died in Afghanistan.

Evanston, with its big university and diverse population, became an epicenter of protest in the '60s as newcomers changed the atmosphere of the lakeside suburb into a hub of activist politics, historians say.

"A lot of people who were pacifists or opposed to wars made a migration from Hyde Park and the South Shore in the '60s," said Patrick Quinn, an archivist at Northwestern University. "They set up centers of opposition to the Vietnam War."

Places like Fountain Square became hubs for protests against everything from homelessness to nuclear proliferation, peace activists said. After the Vietnam War ended, the focus shifted to feminist issues, civil rights and, later, to U.S. intervention in Nicaragua and El Salvador.

During the 1991 Persian Gulf war, Fonda remembers building snowmen in her yard with her son Seth, then 5, and putting signs in the snowmen's arms that read: "No Blood For Oil."

"This city is full of people who go back to the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, the anti-war movement," she said. "People with more progressive lifestyles moved here."

Faith-based groups such as the Unitarian Church of Evanston and the Reba Place Fellowship, a communal Christian organization whose members live in Evanston and Rogers Park, became known for peace activism.

And the town's progressive tone was established early on when it managed to integrate African-Americans into the community, residents said. Their presence helped spawn civil rights activity.

"Evanston was known as one of the towns that fought white flight and won," said Autumn Franger, 58, a member of the Lake Street Church's peace and justice committee, which is also a member of the coalition.

To be sure, not everyone in Evanston is active in peace politics. During debate in September about a City Council resolution calling for bringing the troops in Iraq home, some residents opposed the idea and said the U.S. should stay the course until the war is won.

But the resolution still passed by a vote of 8-1, and peace activists said they rarely have encountered opposition to their street protests or vigils, as they have in some suburbs.

Even Evanston Township High School entered the debate, refusing until recently to turn over student names to Army recruiters.

Last summer, the leaders of disparate peace groups in Evanston and other North Shore suburbs decided to join forces to achieve the goal of bringing the troops home by the end of 2006. As a large group, "our voice collectively could be stronger," said Marcia Bernsten, one of the coalition founders.

The idea to combine forces started to germinate after a 4th of July protest against the war, Fonda said. Then in August, some members held a vigil in solidarity with Sheehan as she camped in Crawford, Texas, outside President Bush's ranch.

By September the group had gained enough momentum to organize places to stay for bus riders in the Bring Them Home Now tour as it passed through Evanston en route to Washington.

Since then, they have held several candlelight vigils and met with members of Congress to lobby for a quick exit from Iraq.

Their latest project, borrowed from activists in New York, has been to leave tiny toy soldiers with labels that read "Bring Me Home" in supermarkets and other places around town.

They buy dozens of 2-inch-high soldiers, download labels from the Internet and leave the toys wherever they go.

Franger, who worked with the City Council to initiate a moratorium on condominium sales in the early 1980s, said social justice and peace movements have changed over the years.

The activists, young and idealistic, were impatient in the past. Now, the peace movement has come of age, she said.

"They're much more patient, much more strategic in getting things done," she said. "I think after you've done it enough years, you understand that change doesn't come immediately, but it does come."