CHARLOTTE, N.C. & WASHINGTON, D.C. -- People in Charlotte and Hickory will gather to mark the five-year anniversary of the War in Iraq today.

There will be a peace vigil and a candle lighting ceremony starting at 5:30 p.m. in the Dilworth neighborhood. Political activist groups MoveOn.org and Code Pink plan the vigil at the corner of East Boulevard and Scott Avenue.

Those groups also plan a candlelight vigil in front of a World War I cannon on Union Square in downtown Hickory at 7:00 p.m.

This also will be a day of anti-war demonstrations in the nation's capital.

Thousands of protesters are expected for what's billed as a day of coordinated non-violent civil disobedience aimed at interrupting business as usual.

Demonstrators plan a blockade outside the Internal Revenue Service to protest the use of taxpayers' money to pay for the Iraq war. There will also be what organizers are calling the march of the dead: protesters dressed in black and wearing skull-like masks will stop at war memorials to read the names of the dead to mark the fifth anniversary.

Tuesday, members of the women's peace group Code Pink carried a giant copy of the preamble of the Constitution and held up peace signs as they marched from the National Archives to the Justice Department and the IRS.

College students from New Jersey to North Dakota planned walkouts. A student group at UNC Chapel Hill e-mailed the Eyewitness Newsroom of plans to walk out and hold a rally on campus. Students at the University of Minnesota vowed to shut down military recruiting offices on campus.

"This is the first time coordinated direct actions of civil disobedience are happening," said Barbra Bearden, communications manager for the group Peace Action. "People who have never done this kind of action are stepping up and deciding now is the time to do it."

The Iraq war has been unpopular both abroad and in the United States, although an Associated Press-Ipsos poll in December showed that growing numbers think the U.S. is making progress and will eventually be able to claim some success in Iraq.

The findings, a rarity in the relentlessly unpopular war, came amid diminishing U.S. and Iraqi casualties and the start of modest troop withdrawals. Still, majorities remain upset about the conflict and convinced the invasion was a mistake, and the issue still splits the country deeply along party lines.

Activists cite frustration that the war has dragged on for so long and hope the more dramatic actions will galvanize others to protest.