Occupy Wall Street: 25 Arrests Made as Movement Celebrates 1-Year Anniversary
Published at
Spencer Platt/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — A protest in New York City’s financial district is planned for Monday to mark the 1-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, a movement against corporate greed that spawned tent cities of protesters around the globe and became a rallying point for the “99 percent.”
Twenty-five people were arrested for disorderly conduct on Saturday at the beginning of three days of festivities planned to re-energize the movement, which fell into disarray after countless arrests, in-fighting and an eviction from Zuccotti Park last November.
“This weekend we will mark the occasion of our anniversary by once again showing the powers that be that we see what they are doing, and that soon enough the whole world will again as well,” said a message on the Occupy website.
The scene was celebratory on Sunday as members enjoyed a concert in Foley Square and attended workshops on civil disobedience in preparation for Monday’s march.
At 7:30 a.m. on Monday, one year to the day the movement began, protesters plan to create “a swirl of mobile occupations of corporate lobbies and intersections” in the city’s Financial District, which is home to the country’s largest banks and the New York Stock Exchange.
The “Occupy Wall Street” of today is largely not what many pictured when they set out on their crusade against the so-called “1 percent.”
One year ago, Zuccotti Park bloomed into a mini-utopia for protesters, where meals were provided free of charge and members voted democratically on group decisions.
Tents and sleeping bags littered the park and the sounds of drum circles and chanting protesters showed Occupy’s booming presence.
The encampment served as a model and inspired people to mobilize in dozens of cities in the United States and around the world.
In London, protesters camped outside St. Paul’s Cathedral, near the London Stock Exchange. In Oakland, they set up outside city hall.
The movement, which relied on protesters having a physical space to occupy, began to run out of steam after police officers clad in riot gear conducted a night time eviction at Zuccotti Park on Nov. 15, 2011.
One by one, camps around the globe, from outside the European Central Bank in Frankfurt to Palm Beach have been shut down.
Monday is expected to mark the first resurgence of the movement since it largely disintegrated.
Rallies are being planned in more than 30 cities around the world.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio