By LATISHA R. GRAY latisha.gray@heraldtribune.com
Last modified: March 17. 2007 4:00AM

SARASOTA -- Julia Aires missed many of the
social and political protests of the 1960s, but
since then she has been making up for lost time.

Aires, 66, considers herself a late bloomer. She
was born in North Carolina and moved to Sarasota
with her family at age 11.

By the time Aires was 23 she had four children and little time or energy for civil disobedience. She kept up with politics by listening to musicians
like Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.

It wasn't until she moved to the San Francisco area in the 1970s that she went from casual spectator to full-blown activist.

"I say that's when I started my peace education," Aires said. "People were much more politically active. That's when I started asking myself, 'Why can't we just have peace?'"

Aires said while she was in California she joined a women's peace group and fought for equal rights for women. She also worked with Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign and helped with several South American liberation movements.

Aires took what she learned in California and brought it back to Sarasota in the 1980s. Since then, she has been a strident community activist, speaking out on the war in Iraq, politics and immigration reform.

Aires helped organize today's Rally for Peace to mark the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq. More than 2,000 people are expected to attend the event, which will begin at 1 p.m. at Island Park on the bayfront.

"We want to re-energize people to protest this war, and that's what we'll see (Saturday)," Aires said. "We saw in the recent election the push for change in this country, and people are against this war. We want to empower people to call their representatives to stop funding this war."

Aires, a grandmother of 11, said it was a shocking experience moving from California back to Sarasota.

People were much more conservative and there were small groups of activists, but no one really worked together, she said. In 1986, Aires started a Justice and Peace Center near Bahia Vista Street and U.S. 41 in Sarasota. She organized the smaller groups in the area and published a newsletter.

"Reagan had just been re-elected and it was very conservative here," Aires said. "I saw an opportunity to strengthen the local groups here."

The peace center lasted for about seven years, but was financially draining and eventually closed.

Aires said the local peace movement died down when President Clinton took office in the early 1990s. She kept busy by working on the Ralph Nader presidential campaign and in 1998 Aires and others successfully had the Florida Constitution amended to make it easier for smaller political parties to be included on election ballots.

Aires said she splits her time now between being an activist and a grandmother.

"I do regular things, like pick up my granddaughter from piano practice," Aires said. "This was my calling and this is what I wanted to do with my life. I just want to make this world a better place for my grandchildren."