Introduction

This book is an account of the first months of the Occupy Wall Street movement (OWS). It is the result of a collaborative process that began a month after OWS had its first official action on September 17, 2011. Roughly sixty people—students and teachers, writers and artists, workers and professionals, female, male, people of color, white, old, young—have been involved in researching, writing, illustrating and editing the text. Although we make no claim to having produced an official or authorized narrative, many of us are active participants in OWS. All of us support the movement.

The idea of writing this book was first raised at a meeting of OWS’s Education and Empowerment working group, held in the public atrium at 60 Wall Street, where many of the committees involved in the occupation meet. The suggestion was met with both interest and wariness. Some felt it was premature to attempt writing such a document. Others worried that the book would present itself, or be perceived as, an “official statement,” despite reassurances from those working on it that they recognized claims to formal representation of a horizontal movement such as OWS to be both inappropriate and impossible.

At a subsequent meeting, the Education and Empowerment group voted against proceeding with the project. But those who remained enthusiastic about the idea decided to form their own group and to continue meeting independently. Members of this independent group still had several different and competing notions of what the book should be. Some saw it as a compilation of voices from the movement. Others envisioned an analysis of OWS’s initial successes and failures. Still others wanted to write a handbook for future occupations. But all agreed that, as far as possible, the book should allow OWS to speak for itself.

To this end, dozens of interviews were conducted with a diverse range of people in and around the occupation. It is on this basis that we call this the “inside story” of the action. Interviewees, along with any other interested parties, were encouraged to attend the group’s editorial meetings which were held at 60 Wall Street and were open to anyone who showed up. And we circulated the minutes of the meetings and the material we gathered to all who wanted to see it.

In the course of the project, participants generally tried to adopt OWS’s method of decision-making—hand signs and all. This is not to say that we have always successfully adhered to the model set forth by the movement–our organization, like OWS, is an imperfect work in progress—but we have tried to observe its principles of direct democracy, consensus-based decision making, inclusiveness, and transparency.

As we go to press with this book, at the beginning of December 2011, many aspects of the future course of Occupy Wall Street remain unclear. But one thing is starkly evident: Under the banner “We are the 99%”, the protest has given birth to America’s most important progressive movement since the civil rights marches half a century ago. We hope, in the pages that follow, to tell the story of that beginning.