Four years ago today, Occupy Philly came into existence and made camping grounds of the exterior of City Hall.
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The view of Philadelphia’s City Hall from 15th & Market Street was obstructed four years ago today by a massive group of protesters who marched, shouted, sang, danced, lectured and pontificated under the banner of Occupy Philly, an off-shoot of Occupy Wall Street, a movement which grew out of a frustration about wealth inequality, specifically the fact that one percent of the population holds a majority of the nation’s wealth.
Dilworth Plaza – the exterior grounds of City Hall, which is now Dilworth Park, a pristine and swanky multi-purpose outdoor venue – was littered with signs that spoke to the movement’s catalyst and was occupied from exit-to-exit by people, rendering the location barely recognizable.
Though the inquiry of why to occupy in front City Hall and not the Philadelphia Stock Exchange when the battle was against big banks and gross wealth inequality remains unanswered, one individual heavily involved in the movement who didn’t want to be identified said that being at City Hall at least made the politicians confront the problems they’d rather ignore, like homelessness and poverty.
And more than just the politicians, the activist suggested, problems became visible, in an unprecedented manner, to the masses, which helped start the conversation in communities about the inequality gap.
“Now we’re discussing poverty for a change, and not the debt ceiling,” said Rev. Jesse Jackson, who visited the Occupy Philly encampment in late November, ahead of the impending eviction. “We’re talking about poverty, illiteracy, disease and hurt, and that itself is a victory.”
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In the quest of justice, getting your narrative in the mainstream is certainly critical to influencing public opinion. So to the degree in which Occupy Philly was able to attract media attention, the movement was a success. But in terms of getting the public to buy-in, Occupy Philly fell short, and it had a lot do with leadership or the lack thereof.
The beauty of the movement was also what caused its demise: group decision-making, a desire to exist without government and no clear leader or personality who spoke for everyone and could articulate policy proposals, if they were ever to materialize.
“I don’t see how you can sustain a movement like that,” said the activist who admitted, under the conditions of anonymity, that the movement was severely flawed; an assertion once unable to be uttered due to their closeness to Occupy Philly.
The movement here four years ago also lacked diversity, it was anything but intersectional. The over-arching theme of Occupy Philly was poverty, but the majority of faces and voices represented weren’t reflective of communities who traditionally were affected by it.
“We had some ironically loud voices from certain individuals and groups who gave lip service to ‘community’ without listening well enough to the community they were standing in the midst of,” Mr. Larry Swetman wrote to me today upon my request of his perspective on Occupy Philly.
Mr. Swetman, one of the more visible faces associated with the local movement, said the Occupy Movement did more than just change the narrative.
He argues that it created a climate wherein “Bernie Sanders is a viable candidate to the next President of the US. A $15 an hour minimum wage is a real possibility and Wall Street bankers can’t just fly under the radar anymore.”
The latter point, about Wall Street criminals, is arguably the biggest impact the short-lived Occupy movement had on society.
Last month, according to The New York Times, the Justice Department issued new policies that prioritize the prosecution of Wall Street criminals – not just their companies – and put pressure on corporations to turn over evidence against their executives.
“We had a real impact and, I think we need to honor and stand tall in that realization, stated Mr. Swetman, “Could we have done more? Sure, but you can say that about pretty much any movement in history.”
The impact of the Occupy movement in totality may be able to claim successes, but here, the movement had minimal impact on the most pressing local issue.
The number of those living in poverty in Philadelphia has remained, for the most part, steady at 24-26 percent, and Philadelphia has the highest rate of deep poverty among America’s 10 biggest cities.
Four years after the encampment of Dilworth Park, Philadelphians rarely talk about Occupy Philly, but poverty remains an all-too-constant conversation in a City worth more than $300 billion.
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Thanks for reading. Until next time, I’m Flood the Drummer® & I’m Drumming for JUSTICE!™