It’s been nearly a month since Occupy DC was ordered to stop sleeping in McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza, and until this week, the anti-corporate-greed movement has been largely quiet, using its de facto eviction to reorganize and rethink the direction of the movement.
But Occupiers have again taken to the streets in much larger numbers this week, starting with protests outside mortgage giant Freddie Mac on Monday and Tuesday and blocking the doors of agribusiness giant Monsanto early Wednesday morning — which resulted in 12 arrests by District police.
Occupy DC protesters say they’re finally getting their groove back after a police raid that removed nearly all of their tents from McPherson. The movement is shifting from an all-purpose protest with broad ideals to a highly specific, locally focused protest over a laundry list of concerns — from education reform to corporate personhood to the mortgage foreclosure crisis.
With this week’s protests — which continued with a student march to the Department of Education on Wednesday — Occupiers say they feel they’re chalking up victories. The Freddie Mac protests on Monday and Tuesday centered on Bertina Jones, a Bowie resident who contends that when she fell behind on mortgage payments, Bank of America swept her mortgage modification off the table and foreclosed on her house. On Tuesday, as a handful of Occupiers demonstrated outside, she met with Freddie Mac officials in McLean and left with a promise that Freddie Mac would work out a new mortgage offer that would allow her to keep her home.
Though Freddie Mac officials say they’ve helped more than 500,000 homeowners do the same thing — and that demonstrators outside had nothing to do with their meeting with Jones — Occupiers say they’ve been energized by Jones’ success and plan to stage similar demonstrations for other homeowners.
“We’re starting to win now. We’re being more vocal — we’ve had enough time to reorganize,” said Ben Johnson, an American University student who works with an Occupy branch at the school.
Meanwhile, Occupiers at Freedom Plaza extended their permit to remain in the park through April 29.
