mike, my dear pal, my chief of staff, where is he? [laughter] anyway, mike and lately. [laughter] he was the finest after i have ever known. you will wear your crown in heaven. certainly not here. [laughter] and you have met a key. this is like the picture of dorian gray. [laughter] i am falling apart and this picture is eternal. dorian gray was the opposite.

the picture age and he never did. then he ended up in that could average mess but that is a beautiful thing. [laughter] annie and i are having fun and the reason i do these things? one reason, this wonderful guy right here. [applause] thank you for coming. stick around. oh my sakes. [applause] coming up next the history of the occupy wall street movement written by activists who were central in its creation.

seven of the contributors to the book read selections from it and answer audience questions. this is just under an hour. >> thanks to kgb for hosting this evening. [applause] i just wanted to say a little bit about the first experience that we had when we were putting this book together. and i suppose really we have the idea for doing the book a couple of weeks after occupy wall street started. and we thought well, we had better try and get some kind of permission for doing the book, because we wanted to write history but the difficulty was getting permission from the move

without any identifiable leadership was actually quite difficult. so, we talked to a few of the facilitators in zucotti park and they said that they thought the best thing to do would he to go to a general assembly in the park and in the announcements to the general general assembly just announced we were doing the book and ask for volunteers. so around about the beginning of october, a few of us went down to the d.a. and i was scheduled to speak, and i was feeling a little nervous about it first of all because i had never spoken through the people's microphone before. and it is a particular skill.

you have to be very precise and to the point and secondly, i was anxious to cousin the point that i was trying to get over to the general assembly where actually quite confiscated. i wanted to say that we were going to do a look that was a piece of history that was really descriptor that didn't claim to be the official voice of occupy wall street, but that was going to try as we were putting it together to mirror the principles of occupy wall street and that it was going to be participatory and horizontally organized. anyone who wanted to be part of putting the book together could be but it was going to be democratic. and it was going to be written by a collection. i was sitting on the steps in zucotti thinking, this is going to be quite difficult to get

over to this crowd through the people's microphone. but i reassured myself by the fact that actually, it's actually a very small general assembly that night. there were probably no more than maybe 100, 150 people at the most at the g8 that night but just before the this section of the agenda that i was to come up on, michael moore who was speaking on the other side of the park finished speaking and about 2000 people turned around and came and sat in the square in front of us. so it was very very nerve-racking. fortunately, the fact the 2000 people came to join the general assembly meant that actually we never got to the item that we were supposed to be talking about.

we waited three hours and they still hadn't gotten to that item so we abandoned it and we abandoned the attempt to talk to the general assembly about the book and they said actually don't worry about it, just go to an education and empowerment committee meeting. a working group meeting. these were taking place in 60 wall st. at the deutsche bank building. so a few of us went along to the next education empowerment subcommittee meeting, and that was a little bit of a fraud experience because there was a lot of support for the book, the idea of the book in the meeting but there was also quite a lot of feeling that it's too early to form an analysis of what was happening and that people were

worried. i think reasonably we might have been official spokespeople for occupy wall street and actually at that meeting we got blocked. it's the only time i have actually had the block and it's not an experience i want ever to go through again. we could not get it through. so we were feeling a bit downcast and wondering whether we would just have to abandon the project, but then we noticed quite a lot of people from the education empowerment committee was saying you know what? just go ahead and do it anyway and we will help and we will find volunteers for you. so that is what we did. we started meeting at 60 wall street and every week that we met more and more people came along and from that point on it was the most wonderful experience because i think this

book which i'm terribly proud of publishing, does actually represent the principles of occupy wall street. it was written by between 50 and 60 people collectively. it was a pleasure going to meetings every week to discuss how we were going to do it. dozens, maybe even hundreds of people around the occupation. we divided those interviews up chapter by chapter. be allocated to, the three, four writers to each chapter. the chapters came in and they were delivered on time. i can tell can't tell you how unusual that is if you're a publisher. it's just amazing that they came in on time and not only did they come in on time but they were actually beautifully written. the thing about this book is it's actually a tremendous rate. it really is a great read and it's an indication that kind of

participation -- participatory collective work that occupy wall street represents really does produce wonderful results, and they think it was because you could hear the spirit of that was going on in zucotti that the book was possible. and it really is, i think it's just a tremendous achievement. i've never done a book like it before and it is just a marvelous piece of instant history. it is about a wonderful time in new york city where you know, revolution was in the air. so we have got a bunch of people here who are going to read some bits from it in the first person who is going to read about the beginnings of occupy wall street

is lisa. [applause] >> occupy wall street is part of a global movement that reach nearly every continent in the last year. although the contest arose in different nations under disparate forms of government as varied in their demands, all who've voiced outrage at the iniquities for unfettered local tax systems. unrest in tunisia broke out on december 17, 2010 after 26-year-old mohammed wallace seed lit himself ablaze. videos went viral and it's facebook igniting a breach of a generation of tunisian youth and sparking colossal demonstrations that led to the january 14 ouster of tunisian president ben ali. next protests arrested in algeriathe algeria, lebanon,

jordan, arsenia, amman and saudi arabia. the first egyptians to protest face on january 25. by january 31 more than 250,000 had swarmed cairo tahrir square. in the mild winter weather tens of thousands pitched large open-air tents, campus and plastic sheets draped over beams. inhabitants of various ideologies and factions formed committee such as the volunteer security service, trash collection, medical services, and these committees served as a template for later movements to europe and the u.s.. by summer, the uprisings had spread to sub-saharan africa, latin america, asia and europe. all these protests influence the people's who participated in occupy wall street. the press working group notice for examples that latino

occupiers got a big inspiration from less publicized movements in chile, colombia, argentina, brazil, mexico and venezuela but all the protests of 2011 the massive and camp tents of the indignant had perhaps the largest impact on the form and strategy of occupy wall street. coordinated to facebook and twitter, the spanish movement marched through roughly 60 spanish cities and set up tents and public squares giving occupiers another name, los ahca prados or campouts. and activists involved in some of the earliest planning sessions for ows describe the spanish encampment in june, these camps became centers of information, protests and revolutionary lives and they set up kitchens distributing free food, counsel booth speaking on different issues.

the environment, the military, women's rights and held meetings, teachings in public discussions. they covered the camps with placards displaying revolutionary slogans and everywhere they went they left behind cardboard signs and graffiti. forming general assemblies and working groups that reached consensus-based process, they created structures that occupy wall street would recycle or repurpose. the spanish occupation electrified. in spain he said i gained renewed urgency and actually recognize the nature of the historical moment and the possibilities available to us here in the u.s.. the camp feels magical but it's also totally jerry-rigged. improvisation built upon improvisation. cloth, metal tents, polls hacking up a sagging canvas roof. a massive storm could take the

whole thing down but can't the same be said of the status quo? the camp joined around the world could be that storm. during his visit willie had contacts and later conferred with them as other activists plan to the rations in new york city. organizers communicated shared ideas and tactics. among other commonalities the protesters across the world, occupied spaces to build communities and take care of all their members needs for food, clothing and shelter for getting camp and gave them a sense of community and family as well as a dialogue with each other and the press. love facebook and twitter were unevenly censored in some of these countries, many of the protesters carried smartphones allowing highly organized movements that would mobilize massive numbers of people. this could explain the wildfires

spread and there preference for non-hierarchal organizing which resembled on line social networking rather than traditional governing structures. thank you. [applause] >> thanks lisa. next up, all of these people who are reading tonight were involved in writing the book. rosanna scotto in to read a section about the first general assembly. [applause] cs the time for the first general assembly approached a group of 40 or 50 gathered to

figure out how to run it. finally, a few others would than in the tompkins square general assemblies which were where they plan the occupied wall street action, agree to facilitate it. she recalls it was beautiful and powerful. we started with megaphones and it didn't work very well. we were standing in the center upon one of the benches and everyone was standing around in a mass circle so we had to speak in two directions. after 10 or 15 minutes, we put the megaphones down and i spoke to the people in front of me using the people's mike which is something we had practiced in both the locative training tonight's previously. i participated in it and had seen it used in seattle in the 1999 w. 20 protest but i thought of it as something useful on the street for communicating information. i actually hadn't thought of it

as a way of conducting an assembly but we were standing in the center of the group of 2000 people and megaphones were not working. she spoke a few words to the people closest by and then asked them to repeated in repeat it in unison to the others. that first night using the people's mike, people hadn't done it before but immediately picked up on it. it creates an atmosphere of active listening and participation. as soon as we started to vibrant energy totally change. the general assembly decided that the group with occupied zucotti park overnight and hold a general assembly at 10:00 a.m. the next morning. printer people settle down and sleeping bags for the night while the police waited nearby. matt presto remembers he was presently surprised is still on edge about what would happen next in and thinking, how long do the police tolerate this? probably this evening or monday.

[applause] so next up travis halloway is going to read from the chapter that we call the book on art in the square. >> so it begins with a quote, we believe we are at the brink of a new argument, a new school of thought. hopefully you will join us" that. he was a poet in late september. i will just read a couple of paragraphs of what we did as poets that occupy. another one of the early artist groups were the poetry guild which emerged in a similarly organic fashion. the first meeting of poets that

occupy wall street happened in late september when over 50 poets gathered for a poetry reading in the square. there was no headliner, no unifying style no entrance fee and it's fair to say no ordinary poetry reading. their initial event a weekly reading that came to be called the poetry assembly was organized and performed at a poetry reading and more like a democratic union assembly. the choice was presented equal in each of the prerogative to speak before the assembly. the occupation was horizontal and leaderless movement poetry would be no different. poets were chosen at random and given no more than three mystery percolates a poetry were repeated back to oppose using the same response method utilized that occupy wall street. writers present said they were not there simply to demand democracy but to reform it. other events like this one called for new artist collectives to format occupy wall street. as an e-mail from the collective

subcommittee, we believe we are in the brink of a new art movement and new tool of thoughts to catalyze that we are creating collective insight on agriculture to advance our movement and society athletically towards a new paradigm. we have already collected on performance art, music and hopefully you will join us for poetry. the poets joined as to the multitude of others. the guild affiliated with arts and culture not only exists of the poets and puppeteers but the photographers actors writers filmmakers sculptors dancers painters and the list seems endless and comprises every creative field imaginable. [applause] >> next up we are going to take a little break after this one but christina is going to read a

little bit about the meditation space in the park. >> so, first i actually want to read something about writing this book because i think that is relevant for all of you to hear about. you heard the version leading up to it but this was the writers actually working on it. it got a little stressful. i worked on a section in living in the square on the sacred space in the meditation space so this is on writing that. the tree of life is one of the first thing i noticed upon entering saccadic park in the middle of october so when i noticed the section of the living in the square chapter have been dedicated to the subject i volunteered to write about it. the problem was i didn't know

anybody directly involved in the sacred space nor -- once i realized that the light to work with a seven e-mail to everyone who is part of the book project asking for help. lisa, another writer for the 99% was involved specifically with the medication medication group responded quickly and said -- shared her experiences. at first they were pushed surprisingly quite. jr. anything for a few days. with a deadline fast approaching i was worried my chapter would be full of holes, and played or worse just plain bad. i also e-mailed the founder of occupy yoga and had not heard back. that saturday through together without the with notes i had on the sacred space mostly tangential remarks from other and if interviews and refresh my in-box or a dozen times. sunday night the night before the draft was do i begin receiving e-mails from charlie gonzalez brenda butler and others. at it was a slow trickle of

offers but by morning my inbox was really with voices who wanted to contribute and that i had to figure out what to do with them all. is certainly wouldn't be over the word limit. monday morning and after 10 were spent patching together dialect sending drafts back and forth on a listserv and making last-minute frantic phonecalls. there were several debates over the details that should or shouldn't be excluded and i don't think the members of the wellness group scents rowing panic. i tried to hide it as good as i could. they were still sending me e-mails about information they felt should be included. i finally had to say alright, it's as good as it's going to get and send the thing in. looking at it now i can see it is made up of many voices that may not harmonize perfectly with one another but are representative of the people and energy and for that i feel excited by it. so i'm going to read a brief section from the chapter that i was just describing.

this is the meditation space. at the intersection of liberty and trinity a few paces and to the northwest connor liberty square trees were surrounded by a low credit benches. the bench is wandering around the tree making it the focal point of the seating area. the trees of the london hybrid species that resulted from the combination of an oriental plane and the american sycamore. most of the trees in the city parks are the hillyer reminder of the city practice rounds and. there is nothing -- at this flora was one of the focal points. way from the hustle and bustle and the dozens of working groups the tree of life became the spiritual center of the park. in the weeks prior to the occupation of zucotti park members of meditation flash mob a holistic community producing offense in the new york city area for years meditated on wall

street outside the new york stock exchange. they also help public meditations at union square in washington square park. anthony whitehurst and member described a collective as a collaborative effort of many individuals with 10 to 12 active facilitators in a group. he added that the structure was intended to be universal and includes chanting om's, silent meditation playing music. following an investigation on october 5 members of mad mob and the consciousness group among other groups in the communities created the beginnings of the community offer. charlie gonzalez, a founder of the consciousness group, created a sign declaring the plane as a tree of life at community sacred space. within a few days to stay began to flourish. the sacred space as designated on the map of zucotti park was used for self-reflection, yoga, chanting, prayer and meanings with spiritual focus. speaking to the persons involved in the creation of the space

they made it clear it was not owned or defined for anyone group, rather is charlie put it, collective shared space that many groups can work within their own ways and all of whom would have been own views and opinions. the initial tree of life as is handmade it donated by an ows supporter. occupier of new york native michael rodriguez was often found under the tree. april the second altar and both he and brenda butler another member of the consciousness group with after its upkeep for most of the days it was it. rodriguez and butler were referred to as the guardians. it was around this alter the members the public and the occupy wall street group including mad mob occupy yoga of the interdependence project and other groups organized to maintain 58 days of continuous prayer twice daily meditation music interface practices worship and community discussion. occupiers and visitors alike contributed a myriad of objects to the altar, stage, flowers,

candles, hindu deities, decorations, peace signs, crucifixes, groceries, rose petals, stones, feathers, shells, crystals, incense, figurines, photos of spiritual teachers, signs and robert. in the daily life of occupy wall street it offered a refuge from crowds and chaos a place for occupiers to pause and reflect on their priorities. the benches also provided a place for people to sit in occupy -- brandon created a facebook page for chile. on his page the tree just described is a community altar and sacred space dedicated to unifying the 100%. occupy yoga added a a search is assemble a real touchdown for those that believe in something greater than themselves. in that way it was the perfect spiritual centerpiece for the occupy movement and a material representation of awareness.

one or two weddings were conducted at the tree of life. the beauty of the tree of life says charlie gonzalez is that it is the concept that is not from one religion or dogma but it is prevalent in all traditions and even science. as a symbol of our interconnectedness. thank you. [applause] >> thanks guys. it has been great so far. as colin said we are going to take a break so johnny the bartender, we will reconvene in a couple of minutes. [inaudible conversations] i just want to say a little bit about the actual publishing of the book. we actually managed to publish the book. we had copies of the book two

months after we started the process, so november 17th, we decided that we were going to go down and give copies to the people's library and -- sorry, december 17. to give people copies at the people's library at a protest that was taking place. the occupation had been evicted from zucotti to the bottom of canal street so we all met down there that afternoon and there had been some ruckus with the police that afternoon. they try to tried to start a new occupation and a square there and the police moved them on pretty fast. by the time we got there we could not find the people's library and so we had our copies of the book that we wanted to

donate to them and i remember john, who is going to read in a bid where the people's library was and he said i think they are running down the road right over there. so we ran after them with copies of the book and we were saying you know could we donate copies to the people's library? they said actually we have got quite a few books we we are trying to carry away but anyway they were kind enough to take copies and you can get them there at the people's library. we are very proud of that. since the book came out, we have sold rights to it all around the world. it's going to be published in the coming months in australia, and in italy. leasehold rights in india and in korea and in japan. so, the echo of occupy wall

street justice is started from what was going on elsewhere in the world, it is now echoing around the world too. there is something really really great about that. the book is also coming out from flea market looks in march and will be available in bookstores there. so, and it is selling very well for us. all the proceeds from the book are going to go to occupy wall street and it has been a publishing project, something that has been very successful. so the next person who is going to read is jackie disalvo and she is going to read a bit about students and labor. [applause] >> i am reading mostly the labor part of students and labor

chapter because that is what i wrote. on october 5, the mass convergence of students and workers at foley square in response to the october 1 arrests of more than 700 ows protesters on their brooklyn bridge played a pivotal role in raising public awareness of the occupy movement. the event also shows how occupy wall street facilitated interconnections and coalition building. indeed, the ows enabled solidarity between student and labor movements was by no means inevitable. conflicting motivations, needs and goals had in recent years foster divisions not only between workers and students but between students of public and private universities and between workers from different unions. with this this and and and more for schools of to budget cuts in corporate takeover of public

services, the occupy movement offered a large umbrella to mobilize groups with seemingly different priorities towards a common cause. the story of how the occupy rally and march came to be and the offense is subsequently enabled highlights occupies our ascent -- power of an engine of solidarity. is the occupation of zucotti approached its third week, ows increasingly collaborated with the burgeoning student movement and gaining support from labor unions. on september 29, less than two weeks into the occupation, a coalition of community and labor groups, including united new york, the working families party, united federation of teachers, workers united, seiu 1199 and the transport workers union local 100 announced they

would hold a community and labor rally in support of occupy wall street the following week. on the same wednesday that students call for a student walkout. the first issue of the occupy "wall street journal" heralded its unity. its front page displayed a large photo of a pink haired woman with a tambourine and the headline, new york united wednesday october 5. student walkout, union marches, occupy wall street.org, new york students rising.org. the new york city student assembly, which facilitated connections among student activists at different universities had been acting along with others didn't solidarity with the local workers, especially the art handlers of teamsters local 814.

be union members have been locked out of work prevailing to agree to a new contract with a 10% wage cut and a stipulation granting owners unlimited freedom to hire nonunion workers. the latter would have effectively ruined the union. united together, students and trade unionists affiliate with occupy wall street interrupted the sale of multi-million dollar paintings of furniture. i did that. it was fun. [applause] one ows impinged infiltrator announced and put its workers on the street in 10 minutes later after the auction return to order a second protester would rise to shout, the ceo makes $60,000 a day.

these interventions continued eventually causing them to require a 5000-dollar deposit just to enter the sales room. ows affiliation protesters also disrupted lunch at high-priced restaurants owned by danny myers, a member of the board of trustees, informing patriots at the restaurant they were sitting in supported the lockouts. the wide array of action in support of the lock out lockouts workers which included several arrests culminated on november 9 with 200 people, including college students and members of at least 10 different unions joining the picket line. indeed, ows and the students, the burgeoning student movement of ride a lucrative opportunity for the labor movement to counterattack against owners

hardlined tactics as well as the new threats against collect the bargaining in statehouses nationwide. the president of the united auto or his local 21 said he and the uaw have been talking about how do we mobilize people and their members are not just electronically. hardly mobilize people to get out and protest and rally and demonstrate? the protest against wisconsin governor scott walker attack on barney writes in 2000 of them our students and union workers occupied the state capitol in madison before erecting a tent cities served as an important precedent. other failed to prevent the union busting law from passing those protests protesters to radicalize the mate -- that labor movement nationwide and made labor unions quick to recognize the potential benefits

of aligning with occupy wall street. this is a dream come true for us, to have decent people speaking out about what is happening to working people. said george gresham president of local 99 a union of 300,000 health care workers. trade unionists were active in occupy wall street from the outset taking part in the first general assembly on august 2 and forming the ows labor working group within the first week of the occupation at zucotti. the group which would come to have more than 100 members representing more than 40 unions adopted a dual purpose, supporting union struggles, seeking union support for the occupy movement. by the october 5 rally the group had conceded in securing the endorsement of the executive council of the afl-cio the largest federation of unions in the united states. i was surprised with the eagerness of the unions

responded. a founder of the labor working group. this alliance is unprecedented in the u.s. and distinguishes occupy wall street from the movements of the 60s when unions were more conservative and the youth cultures tend to be antiunion. the union have been under attack by the 1% and they were looking were of new strategies and new allies. one such union was the transit workers union 100 which in the fall of 2011 was involved in difficult contract negotiations. working through the ows labor working group the rank and file set up a table in the 30 plus-up with hard hats left by laborers from the nearby freedom tower's construction site. the table served as a place where workmen kutcher their stories with visitors to liberty plus as well as going about the movement. the occupation also facilitated connections among unions, members of local latest who were

introduced to local 814 and the two locals quickly decided to support one another's respective struggles. gillian titian organizer with the local 814 encourage workers on picket lines while universalizing their struggle by pitting them against the comment enemy the one person. the occupied movement has changed union said stuart appelbaum president of the wholesale and department store union. if you're seeing a lot more unions wanting to be aggressive in their messaging and activities. indeed in response to occupy wall street, many kenyans were quick to seize upon the 99% slogan of fixing it to buttons and signs for the october 5 march. by 5:30 on october 5 thousands of students and workers laughing chanting and reveling in the power of their numbers. is the sunset they trickled out

of the square to the south marching towards liberty plaza and the occupation that occasioned their unity. just a little bit more. this is the biggest moment between labor and occupy, the moment of the first eviction. this is the night for. several working groups began reaching out to the movement supporters to the new york community in preparation for the confrontation that they expected the next morning. a call went out over the internet urging anyone who is able to wait make their way down the park. they secured a strong showing of solidarity from new york city unions contacting park employees, sanitation workers and custodians to help with the cleanup. more significantly many of the cities including the communication workers, the auto workers, the service employees

union, on the 14th an hour before the scheduled cleaning. and the united federation of teachers also vowed to turn out members and solidarity in an unprecedented move to new york city area afl-cio sent out an emergency e-mail around 8:00 p.m. the night before with the subject line reading, go to wall street now. labor was also lending its support behind the scenes according to nader rosenstein. a lot of people were calling the mayor and calling elected officials and telling them to call the mayor. people leveraging class that they have with elected officials. the next morning, at a certain point thousands of labor people started pouring into the area and one occupier reported as saying in the electricity went

through the air as the crowd amassed. the excitement grew as hundreds descended on the park all of one's. big unions are here to back this up. the unions are here to back us up someone shouted through the people's microphone to thunderous cheers. [applause] [applause] >> the next person that is going to read his ben shepard and he is reading from a book about what was going on at the edge of the square and that is what he is going to read from. [applause] >> it such a pleasure to be part of this project. we did a book reading here 10

years ago and i will local squatter was here. the nice part is how these movements come together and that is what is so interesting, watching labor and community gardens in all these movements come together and this wonderful movement which is continuing. using liberty cafés facilities at at the cooked enormous quarries of food and up to feed 200 people on weekdays and 3000 on weekends. the sustainability committee a few of them are in the room right now, health that was developing dishwashing system so as to avoid the waste using disposable place pretty the same committee organize a system for getting rid of kitchen scraps as one of its founders explains. with the amount of food that was coming in and out and that donations and the amount of food being prepared there was a lot

of food ways. it was actually my wife catherine's idea to start creating compost buckets and start taking it out. that was my idea to start doing it on cycles. kavanaugh and company were soon collaborating with bike activist to form a bike brigade. yesterday we pulled out seven, five-gallon buckets of waste in the figure does buckets wait anywhere from 30 to 35 pounds each so seven buckets is over 200 pounds taken out a day. the groups would bring food from zucotti to community gardens on the low reset including verizon oh, belinda, la plata and any number of others. pedal power was also used to provide electricity for the kitchens as well as the rest of the part. one of the first things we realized was we had to do is get

everybody here off fossil fuels so we made an energy bike and the good-looking man across the room, he was on the sustainability committee. we now can tell pedal the power -- started powering some of the things this occupation needs like laptops, cell phones and cameras. as soon as we plugged it into all of the other committees -- the committees approaches and they said we need one to match. let me move over to another section about eakes which is my passion right now. depending on the time of day, we were costly in the early weeks of the occupation and the closer one got to trinity place walking along the park's southern sidewalk -- back the occupied termers who claim the space on the steps on the park's web site.

he gave the park's western edge and more spiritual vibe but that didn't stop the occasional dance party from breaking out. one evening in early october group of bicyclists from times up in new york city based environmental group advocating direct action dissented on the park's western edge with a special soundbite pumping jc knew other james brown and public enemy tends as the occupiers danced, let off steam and chanted all day all week i'd play that beat. brenden kavanaugh and note that the is activist who helped organize the dance party they called this was before they had all the barricades up around the park and you could go and come easily. there were still no walls and people started running out in running along the side pumping their fists in the air. eventually the police push the dances down the block and within days the barricades along

senate -- trade were set. i'm going to read a final sentence or two. i had no idea who wrote so much of what is lovely and in a receding today and found a line. personal storytelling help to build solidarity and better explain it to the outside world. for many a desire to exercise associated frustration towards hostile and the possible was deeply motivating and still lives. thank you. [applause] >> next up hammered dean hay is going to read a bit from the chapter on the occupation. [applause]

>> this is my first reading that i have ever done. [applause] the movement was beautiful. it was a monk some marble paving stones flickered as the crowds at them float above them blocking their luminescence. a lone black woman and a black dress walked down the stairs on september 23. her first day at zucotti park and survey 15. she looked left and right in up and seemed inches in the conversations around her but not recognizing anyone personally or by association she waited. awkward and silent until the general assembly began. she was lost in the crowd. jamie and member of the people of color working group who describes herself as the 99% in and a person of color first went down to occupy wall street on

october 15, the national day of action. i went by myself she explained. no one else wanted to go with me. none of my friends were interested and i was just like well, i'm going to go out and check it out on my own. i love the energy of all of it, but with some people started to notice was that the ga was majority white and male which is the highest privilege and have a society like our own. there were a lot of people who are the 99% who look at these issues, issues that are most prevalent to them, issues that directly affect them every single day but they are not there at zucotti park as they feel alienated or they feel their voices won't be heard hurt or they experience racism at some point. so on october 1, as tension surrounding this feeling of alienation built one woman said at the general assembly and proposed the people of color

working group. asking that anyone interested meet me now. though she discussed the idea with many of her white allies and people of color that early earliest member had never the last try to send up to what men in order to get her proposal on the agenda the first place. all you by wall street she said was not the diversity of earth is to be. i didn't expect it to be a movement. i didn't expect that she said. the movement was created in a racially hostile society for individuals brought into, brought into the dangerously fraud logic of colorblindness that they already had. about five people, both people of color and by people, showed up at the initial meeting and exchanged e-mails. by the next meeting the group attracted 20 members and by its third meeting, about one of the hundred people of all colors sat

and through consensus became eight closed space for any person who identified as a person of color. finally on october 1 the call to people of color from the working group was released. i will leave that for you guys. [applause] >> you so our last reader this evening is john peacock and he is going to read a section from the chapter about the eviction from zucotti park. [applause] >> howdy. so i heard about the eviction as many many people and activists

and supporters of occupy wall street heard about it, being woken up in my bed in brooklyn, and then i've responded immediately to that phonecall the way many others did and said i'm not going to go and i went back to sleep. than about 30 seconds later i got up and i went. [laughter] and you know this chapter is not a chapter about the ending but the chapter about the new beginning and i hear so many amazing things that are happening beyond the a of fiction, so i hope that spirit comes through. meanwhile, at 3:00 a.m. hundreds of displaced occupiers and protesters were still holding the round on broadway blocked by barricades and police. they watched as sanitation workers filled a steady line of dump trucks and drove off in the night. buy houses in the dump truck killed one man. they are stealing our stuff. while over the barricades a lone

jirga door played tenor guitar and played bob dylan's when the ship came in. isles were chants rang out, you are, you're cute, take off that riot suit. [laughter] and, tell me what democracy looks like. this is what democracy looks like. under the dump truck engines and the crowds didn't journalists interviewed to displace campers while the protesters try to reconcile themselves with what had happened and speculated about the future. occupiers shouted in between text and phonecalls reassuring friends and loved ones who wanted to know where they were that they were safe. they also exchanged text with fellow protesters at foley square and scattered throughout the streets of lower manhattan. still others client and scribbled on the lease cars and some inventive activists water ordered along a line of police vehicles and let the air out of the tires in one fell swoop's.

nearby -- if ivan would dump trucks had carried off the bulk of the contents of police made their worst to reopen run with. three punk clad protesters whistled at a young blonde female officer. she gritted her teeth. flanking her two male officers a head taller than she stared down the cat callers and discuss. a nearby male activists met the officer's eyes as if to say, i'm sorry. as she'd call me walked him out in the street the two chatted. she about her usual beat in upper manhattan and he about the call from brooklyn. meanwhile as scores of officers pressed the restless crowd to muddled announcement announced if you don't leave the streets you will be arrested. which gave way to the chant all day, all we could occupy wall street perkovich and start out

slowly almost have time to quicken as the nypd swept the streets for gall to rations arose pushing everyone out of the streets and onto the sidewalk outside of trinity church or. 's a swarm of officers overpowered them and others held bottles and larger up shrum and far. one young man leapt onto police cruiser and threw himself onto a crowd of police. cries rang out, fascist, who are you protect them? and shane. other protesters called the police to join them. they are stealing your pensions too some shouted but within a matter of minutes police had reclaim broadway. industry was cleared and those who defy the police were arrested and gone some cops have to change their deflated tires which blocked the morning traffic where an additional 30 minutes. as traffic resumed those remaining made their way to foley square where a general assembly was already debating the movement's next step.

by 6:00 a.m. on the throngs of protesters had disbursed only a few dozen remained lingering among the police and the porters chasing that perfect post rate sound bite. by then the barricades let's looks than making it possible to see the sanitation and security workers driving every inch of the empty part. officers did via assuring the crowd that they could return within minutes as soon as the crews finished cleaning. this turned out to be false. no one was allowed to range of the park until after 5:00 p.m. that day. later portrait of most of the cops hadn't been informed about the raid. they thought they were donning riot gear is a part of an exercise until they heard the orders to head downtown. as the sun rose please grow the remaining protesters onto one section dov of area beside well. if you are arrested for refusing to move from the barricades eastern sidewalk to the barricades on on the west side of broadway. said officials were quick with public relations calling the eviction necessary for

nonspecific health and safety concerns and spending negative press with silver linings answering initial reports of the destruction of over 5000 people's library books. mayor bloomberg quickly treated -- tweeted all the books were secure and with the available for recovery the following day. the truth is seems by somewhere between. early in the morning braved a twitter account transferred the following message. the nypd has destroyed everything of occupy wall street put in dumpsters including the ode of this library. is time to shut down nyc. stephen lawyer had lived a zucotti park for most of the two month encampment and worked in his levering have to create the massive ows poetry with the anonymous famous country vendors from around the world. that night he said he could barely save the massive anthology before the cops shut them out of the park as he watched them dump books into trucks. library has over 9000 books and a little less than 5000 were taken that night he said adding

the rest of the books were stored in a nearby space went to the movement. i save the anthology by strapping both holders to my back and read about it during the raid. when asked about the incident bill for the people's library added that the on-site computers which the city had also claimed were recoverable after the raid had been systematically destroyed. a week after the eviction of representatives of the people's library and a lawyer that they retain to sue the city issued a press release stating that only 1275 books were recovered with only 839 of these in readable condition. the city they said had trashed or destroyed more than 3000 of the books seized. but after, if the facts of the eviction were slow to emerge one thing was perfectly clear as the sun rose in that cool november morning. for the first time in nearly two months zucotti park was empty but for a handful of sanitation workers and armored