#O1 Anniversary Press Release

Submitted by Lyssa Strata on

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE SEPT. 27, 2012
crafted by the OLA #O1 Working Group

Contact: Occupy Los Angeles (323) 250-6291 (323) 391-4986

What:    
One-year Anniversary Commemoration and Re-Dedication of Occupy Los Angeles

When:    
Friday (9/28) 7:00 PM at Pershing Square
Occupy Speak-Out with Social/Cultural Gathering & Drum Circle

Saturday (9/29) & Sunday (9/30) 10:30 AM-7:00 PM at Fletcher Bowron Square         (Main and Temple Streets) and on City Hall South Steps-"Solidarity Park" - teach-ins, speak-outs and Really, Really Free Market

Monday (10/1) 12-2:00 PM Rally at Pershing Square; 2:30-4:30 PM March in                 Downtown LA & 6:00 PM General Assembly

Where:  
Pershing Square at Sixth Street and Olive Street, Downtown LA locations, Fletcher Bowron Square (Triforium) at Main/Temple & Solidarity Park (City Hall)

Who:      
Occupy Los Angeles, other area Occupy groupings, community allies, & the public, especially the 99%
 
 

OCCUPY LA MARKS ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY WITH CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES

Members of Occupy LA Plan a Peaceful 4-Day
Commemoration and Celebration of Solidarity


LOS ANGELES – Occupy LA turns 1 year old this week and invites everyone, especially those who have participated over the year, to events marking the occasion and addressing the issues that continue to inspire Occupy to civic action.  Occupy LA (OLA) plans to hold cultural activities, speak-outs, educational workshops, discussions, and skill-shares, commencing Friday September 28, 2012 and culminating in a Day of Action and General Assembly on Monday, October 1, 2012. Musicians will perform all four days as well. Some food and water will be provided, but participants are urged to bring some to share.

OLA launched its General Assembly meetings on September 23, 2011 in Pershing Square after activists in New York started Occupying Zuccotti Park near Wall Street in New York. October 1, 2011 Occupy began a two-month-long encampment at City Hall Park, renamed Solidarity Park by consensus of hundreds of Occupiers at a General Assembly last November. Occupy Los Angeles uses a consensus decision-making process for all its official decisions, actions, and communications.

Occupy LA reached consensus last week to hold a speak-out and social-cultural gathering including a drum circle in Pershing Square at 6th Street and Olive Street this Friday evening at 7:00 PM. OLA has invited other area Occupy activists, including Occupy the Hood, Occupy Skid Row, Occupy Fights Foreclosures, Occupy Venice, Pasadena, Long Beach, Orange County, Ventura, and San Fernando Valley to share perspectives on accomplishments, issues, and lessons learned over the course of the Occupy movement’s first year.

On Saturday at Fletcher Bowron Square (Triforium), diagonally across from City Hall, OLA plans to have a series of workshops, educational panels, discussion groups, and teach-ins addressing issues of economic inequality, fighting foreclosures and evictions, political repression, social and racial justice, transparent-participatory-horizontal democratic community organizing, environmental sustainability, human rights, gender equity, decolonization, veganism and peace.

On Sunday at Solidarity Park (City Hall south steps) and the Triforium at Main and Temple, OLA will focus on prefigurative strategies and practices for the kind of world we want to build and will feature, among other things, a Really Really Free Market of no-charge goods and services. Members of Occupy encourage attendees to bring items to share for free. In addition, four poets will present a panel on the role of cultural expression in social transformation, and there will be skills-sharing, know your rights, and organizing workshops.

On Monday, October 1 -­ the one-year anniversary of the Solidarity Park encampment – Occupy LA will gather at noon in Pershing Square for a rally, followed by a march through the downtown financial district with labor union members and other workers, students, queers, immigrants, homeowners, tenants, unhoused people, anti-war activists and other contingent groups of the 99%.

“We will demonstrate at banks and other financial and governmental institutions representing the damaging interests of the 1%, who both caused, and yet have benefited from, the economic collapse and hardship they have visited on the rest of us," said one member of Occupy LA.

Monday will end with a General Assembly at 6:00 PM back at Pershing Square (an earlier start time than OLA's regular GA's, which normally begin Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7:30 PM). Plans also include a fundraising party after the General Assembly. The weekend events all focus on uniting Occupy and community activists building towards an October 6 rally against the war in Afghanistan and an October 22 day of action against police brutality.