Occupy moves to Baltimore streets

They are the 99 percent of Americans that will not stand for the greed and corruption of the other one percent. Hundreds of Baltimoreans united to demand sweeping reform at the corner of Pratt and Light streets on Tuesday, Oct. 4th and have not left since.

The Occupy Baltimore movement has sprung from the Occupy Wall Street movement and acquired a life of its own.  Many have erected tents in McKeldin Park in order to keep their protest alive even while Baltimore is asleep, and they do not plan on leaving.

Protesters began to gather in lower Manhattan last month in an attempt to express their anger at the financial firms that have been largely blamed for our economy's slow-down in a movement entitled "Occupy Wall Street."  Since then, it has spread to cities all over the country, including Baltimore.  

Hopkins medical student Christopher Lyman was inspired by his participation in Occupy Wall Street events, which he learned of through anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters. Lyman was a part of the organizing force in bringing the protest to Baltimore.

"I'm one of the 99 percenters," Lyman said. "We're organized behind the idea that there's too much corporate greed and that corporations have way too much influence on our political system. That general idea has pretty much gotten us organized and going."

The movement is united in their beliefs that the one percent (the richest one percent of the country) holds too much power relative to the rest of the population.  Signs everywhere in McKeldin

Park declared that the 99 percent need to take back the country.  Signs at the event read "We are the 99% hands that build America," and "1% corruption, 99% disruption."

Carrie Mitchell, a young woman from Mount Airy, explained her reasoning for attending the protest. She realized that the protests had to touch those in power in order to make a difference.   

"I want the monopolizing corporations to lend an ear to the citizens," she said. "We can protest all we want, but it only matters if the powers that be meet us halfway.  We just need to be heard."

Lyman participated in the Union Square March in which a group of girls were peppersprayed.

"I was in the middle of all that . . . and I was just blown away with the absolute commitment to non-violence. It was surreal and amazing to be a part of that. While I was there I was talking to a lot of people and had this idea formulating in my head: we gotta do Occupy Baltimore, we gotta do that here," he said.

Lyman started networking about Occupy Baltimore through Twitter, and after a positive response, created a Facebook page for the protest.

"Things really started taking off from there and got big. Other groups had been trying to do the same thing and we came together and got organized," Lyman said.

Although the Occupy Baltimore movement is nowhere near the scale of the protest in New York, Lyman noted that they had months of planning while Occupy Baltimore took off in a much shorter time period.

"Within a matter of four or five days, we already went from ‘hm, should we do Occupy Baltimore?' to ‘hey, we're out in the middle of McKeldin Square' . . . we are still going through the process of how this is going to go and are following a lot of leads of how they're doing it in New York," Lyman said. "We're also something different in the sense that we're showing solidarity for New York, but we're also giving Baltimore a platform for bringing up local issues."

Lyman explained that workshops in the park are organized small-scale meetings that include a discussion on a variety of issues both general and local, including racism in Baltimore, urban development groups relating to city policy and attention paid toward them as a corporate institution and the focus on the building of new infrastructures such as jails in Baltimore rather than focusing on improving city schools.

If there is enough interest, these workshops are expanded into general assembly gatherings of the protesters as a large group, and these gatherings are constantly getting larger.

According to Lyman, the protesters spread about the park number anywhere from 100 to 400 during the general body meetings each day and about 50 people have been camping on-site, the numbers of each continuing to increase with each new day.

"We're getting a lot of union attention now, so pretty soon [Occupy Baltimore] will be about the concerns of just a couple hundred people [in McKeldin Park] to a couple thousand people," Lyman said.

However, he realized that not everyone is able to come to McKeldin Park, and noted that this is an issue that is not being ignored by organizers.

"We're trying to focus on McKeldin Square, but there's been some talk about creating online workshops and things like that," Lyman said.

The demographic composition of the protest has also been of some concern to organizers.

"When we first started getting together there was a heavy white male prevalence, but we've actually made a very strong concerted effort to reach out to other communities through grassroots groups and community leaders," Lyman said. "I personally have started to see a much more diverse group showing up there and that's been really great to see."

Additionally, the inner-workings of organizers have brought direction to the small encampment of protesters.  Alongside the various workshops held, a table giving out donated food, an information kiosk and a media kiosk all are staffed by those involved.  

"We are like our own little government," Mitchell said.  

At this point it is not clear as to where the protest will lead, or what the specifics of its aims may be.

"I don't even know if it's a good idea to define what [the movement] is at this point," Lyman said. "I think when you define something, you also define what that thing is not, and at this point I say let the biggest imagination win."

"In Baltimore we have a lot of problems and there's a lot of conversation that we have to have to try to figure out what these things are. Where the Occupy Movement will lead? I don't know."