protestors<\/a> now, as back then, had no amplification permit, they used a \u201chuman microphone\u201d with crowds in unison repeating every few words speakers said.<\/p>\n\u201cWhat began with people camping on a small patch of public space in Lower Manhattan became a laboratory for new forms of organizing, mutual aid, political education, and collective action,\u201d organizers said in a written statement.<\/p>\n
Joshua Douglass, an attorney and one of the founders of Occupy2026, said OWS was \u201ca movement whose main success was changing the dialogue.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cOWS is a way of life, a vibe inside of your soul that says this isn\u2019t right, what\u2019s going on,\u201d Douglass said. \u201cAnd pretty much everyone is feeling that today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many at this mini marathon, with events scheduled through Saturday, Sept. 20, touted the transformation, not elimination of the movement, famous for its focus on \u201cincome equality\u201d and phrases such as the\u00a0 \u201c99%\u201d and the \u201c1%.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It also spawned many other groups, changing conversations about change, while many said most of the same challenges remain in a world, if anything, more unequal and particularly perilous.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really, really glad to see all of you here today,\u201d Alejandrina Murphy, a Manhattan resident who said only five showed up last year in the rain. \u201cThe issues remain the same and they\u2019re worse than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the crowd of nearly 50 held signs saying S17, for Sept. 17, the moment that gave birth to a movement. \u201cPeople from all ages were here,\u201d said Ken Gale, co-producer and co-host of Eco-logic. \u201cThey weren\u2019t only hanging out with people of their own age. Here everybody hung out with everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bennett Weiss, who came to the rally from Newburgh with bags full of buttons, such\u00a0 as \u201cLet\u2019s do it again: Occupy 2026 15th Anniversary,\u201d said the world came to Wall Street.<\/p>\n
![\"protestors](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/occupy-wall-stree-2026-rotated.jpg\" "\\"Same")
Occupy Wall Street protestorsPhoto by Claude Solnik<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople from all around the world would come and talk with us,\u201d Weiss said. \u201cOccupy reached out to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n
After running a button machine then, collecting thousands of dollars in contributions for buttons, Weiss was back handing out buttons 15 years later.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cAn important part of the Occupy movement was the button table,\u201d Weiss said. \u201cIt generated conversations. People agreed with some and not with others.\u201d<\/p>\n
When police 11 years later prevented protestors from marching to and occupying One Chase Manhattan Plaza and Bowling Green Park, protestors headed for Zuccotti Park, which soon was crawling with cameras.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was accidental,\u201d Jerry Ashton, at the time a 19th St. and Second Street Manhattan resident and now author of \u201cThe Unintended Activist, said of this location, left open for the protestors. \u201cIt was electric.\u201d<\/p>\n
Others said OWS acted like a petri dish for protest and an innovation incubator, bringing together individuals who founded organizations targeting specific issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo many wonderful things came from Occupied, such as other organizations,\u201d said Donna Stein, president of New York City Friends of Clearwater and co-host of Eco-logic on WBAI. \u201cPeople became activists who had never been activists before. Other people who were activists were re-energized.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jerry Ashton, now author of \u201cThe Unintended Activist,\u201d had just retired as a debt collector and begun doing journalism, covering Occupy Wall Street for the Huffington Post, 11 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came down to write a story and take pictures, but I made a terrible mistake. I started listening,\u201d Ashton said. \u201cWhat I listened to resonated. They were complaining about income inequality, talking about how the system was putting us into debt.\u201d<\/p>\n
After working 30 years as a debt collector, Ashton believed something was wrong and wanted to \u201cright the wrong of unpayable medical debt.\u201d He co-founded RIP\/Undue Medical Debt, initially with offices overlooking Zucotti Park.<\/p>\n
They use donations to buy debt on the debt market, where medical debt is often sold for pennies and then forgive it. \u201cYou could buy $100 worth of debt for a penny,\u201d he said. \u201c$10,000 would buy a million dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said RIP\/Undue Medical Debt has managed to forgive $46.9 billion in debt, affecting over 35 million Americans.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThat came out of Occupy Wall Street,\u201d Ashton added. \u201cI retired from the board a few years ago to go into veteran debt abolition.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
While Occupy was born out of an effort to change the world, many said it changed people one at a time.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cOccupy was a movement that developed organically. It started in New York, but it went global,\u201d Stein said. \u201cOccupy made people better people. Occupy was all about creating a better world. One of the themes is \u2018Another world is possible.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
It also created a community who felt connected by a cause, going on to be part of Fight for $15, Black Lives Matter, Sunrise Movement, March for Our Lives, the Bernie Sanders campaign and others.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a wonderful community of people covering many ages,\u201d Stein, who had been part of the environmental solidarity working group, added. \u201cNot everybody agreed on every issue. It was interracial, inter-generational.\u201d<\/p>\n
Douglass said \u201cOWS urges humans to come together, to create a better world together,\u201d a timeless message.\n<\/p>\n
Some, however, pointed to shortcomings in the movement that never developed clear goals or demands.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019ve got to be in parks like this every week with music and songs and dance. We got to get the dance going,\u201d said Staten Island resident Bill Johnston. \u201cWe\u2019re losing the fight from 2011. We\u2019ve got to do better.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While there was diversity, others said there wasn\u2019t enough in a movement that, while it went global, still fell short on inspiring large numbers across racial lines.<\/p>\n
\u201cOccupy Wall Street was generally a Caucasian movement,\u201d said one protester. \u201cWhen Black Lives Matter happened later, that\u2019s what this movement should have been. It didn\u2019t resonate with the Black community.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Protestors on Thursday united in Lower Manhattan\u2019s Zuccotti Park, the site where Occupy Wall Street was born, gave…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[359,75,9,11,10,130809,4648,130810],"class_list":["post-350196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-lower-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-occupy-wall-street","tag-protests","tag-zuccotti-park"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}