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Occupy Y'all Street

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Jason Cherkis' and Sara Kenigsberg's latest entry in the 'Occupy Y'All Street' series that examines some of the lesser-known Occupy encampments is maybe the most important thing they've posted yet. It asks the question of what happens when the initial enthusiasm of the protests starts to wane. It asks, what happens next.

The article focuses on Occupy Charlotte member Vic Suter, a key organizer who has dedicated her life to the issues related to Occupy Wall Street and is going above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to making sure that Charlotte is occupied and that the rallies and marches in the city don't die.

A month earlier, the Occupy activists in Charlotte had drawn more than 500 to their first march uptown, a noisy success that included a stop at Bank of America's North Tryon Street headquarters, where the throngs chanted up its 60 stories. The building -- the tallest in the state and a dominant spear in the city's skyline -- had been a force for civic pride. But since the Great Recession, the bank has become one of the country's great villains. The Wall Street of the South now had its own potent occupation.

The early general assemblies could number in the hundreds. The meeting participants were drawn by growing income disparities, rising college tuition costs, the region's environmental decay. They were among the metro area's double-digit unemployment rate. They realized they were everybody.

Vic had joined on the first night and had been charged with welcoming newcomers and teaching them the movement's hand signals. Soon she began organizing three marches each day to one spot. This was her work week. Charlotte's downtown had grown rich with examples of injustice wrapped in glass and outfitted with bad public art. Vic filled up to-do lists with ideas for future marches.

For years, she had searched for her place. She tattooed "Restless" in black cursive script on her shoulder. But at Occupy, she thought she might have found her calling, and her very own tribe in the buckle of the bible belt. She fell hard. "When you're throwing yourself into something," she explained to us, "you don't have a lunch break. You don't have time off. You don't get a vacation from a long-term protest."

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Occupy Y'All Street: Occupy Atlanta Shows the Power of the Movement


The second video in Jason Cherkis and Sara Kenigsberg's Occupy Y'All Street series for Huffington Post takes a look at the story of Tawanna and Christopher Rorey, a Gwinnett County, Georgia, couple facing eviction at the hands of Fannie Mae. Christopher is a police officer and the family had done nothing wrong:

In the spring of 2010, the Roreys decided they wanted a loan modification. They had managed to pay their mortgage each month. They just wanted a little more breathing room. When they made the request to their mortgage servicer, then-called Everhome, the Roreys say they were told that unless they could prove financial hardship, they couldn't get the modification.

A foreclosure consultant they hired told them to stop paying their mortgage. Counterintuitive as it may sound, it's common advice in the industry.

The Roreys took the advice that summer. In September, Everhome entered into foreclosure proceedings on the Roreys. On Oct. 5, they were foreclosed on.

Their foreclosure consultant has since been arrested for allegedly breaking into foreclosed homes and renting them out.

"Fannie Mae is committed to helping homeowners avoid foreclosure whenever possible," Amy Bonitatibus, senior director for Fannie Mae corporate communications, stated in an email to HuffPost. "We have a Mortgage Help Center in Atlanta where homeowners can meet with a trusted housing counselor to discuss their mortgage situation and options to avoid foreclosure. Unfortunately, the homeowner did not seek assistance from our Help Center."

The Roreys' attorney Asim A. Alam says it was unknown that Fannie Mae was the lender until well after the foreclosure. Everhome never mentioned Fannie Mae's involvement. Shortly before the foreclosure proceedings started, the Roreys expected that the consultant would file a modification request. They are unsure if he ever did, Alam says.

Everhome did not return a request for comment.

"I am very happy [this case] is receiving this much publicity," Alam tells HuffPost. "It is a representative case. Most of my clients are not poor, lazy people who get in over their heads. They are getting screwed over by the bank. They were given inaccurate information by their lender. What happened to the Roreys can happen to anyone in the community."

Once again, the video tells a powerful story of a family whose life is being devastated by the policies and actions of the 1 percent, when there is no reason for the crisis that is taking place. The Roreys did nothing wrong and they played by the rules and it didn't matter.

Beyond that, this video highlights a couple of important things about the movement. While the Roreys ultimately lost their battle, despite the help of Occupy Atlanta and the newly-formed Occupy Gwinnett County, something bigger is going on. The first thing is that many people, in the movement and outside the movement, have had a vague idea for a long time that things are going wrong in this country without being able to put their finger on what exactly it was. Stories like this are helping many new people figure out what's wrong with the system. And once that knowledge is out of Pandora's box, it isn't going back in. Change can't come in any significant way until the masses start to learn about the wrongs that are being done.

More importantly, though, is that thousands of young activists across the country are not only being brought into the political system through the Occupy movement, they are also learning how to organize and more effectively fight the problems they see. While the Occupy movement couldn't save the Roreys' home, there is no doubt that a lot of people learned from the attempt what things work and what things don't work and they're going to try again. And they will increase their success rate because they will learn from their mistakes. And this process is being repeated over and over all across the country.

That's something that should really scare the 1 percent and something that should help cheer up the 99 percent. Change is coming.



Occupy Y'all Street: Meeting Occupiers in Gainesville, Fla.

Jason Cherkis and Sara Kenigsberg at Huffington Post have launched a brilliant new series, Occupy Y'all Street, that takes a look at Southern Occupy cities that are not being covered much by the mainstream media. The first episode takes a look at occupiers in Gainesville, Fla.

The video highlights the stories of Ed Speanburgh and his girlfriend and of a restaurant owner named Maya. Speanburgh's story is heart-wrenching:

"I watched a lot of good district managers get cut before me," he says. "I watched a lot of sales people get cut before me. And I watched 500 electricians go out of work. And watched 1,300 welders go out of work. What do you do at that point when you can't make any money? I watched them lose their homes. I watched them lose their cars. I watched them lose their families, their wives, their marriages broke apart, their kids taken away -- everything. And I didn't know what to think. I knew something was wrong."

In August 2009, Speanburgh was laid off. He came back to a Gainesville neighborhood that had been hit by the recession. "I noticed that over 200 units in here were up for sale on the same day," he recalls. "It was like, 'Holy [sh*t]. This is hittin' close to home.'"

A job painting for the Veterans Affairs saved Speanburgh. But even that job ended. In the two years since, he has used up his unemployment benefits, and his $6,000 in savings. He sold his kayaks and his painting equipment.

Speanburgh and his girlfriend have started sleeping at Occupy Gainesville three nights a week.

Speanburgh is a perfect example of the reason that the Occupy movement exists. He was someone who played by the rules, did the right things, worked hard and still couldn't make it. The 1 percent have created an economy that creates too many people in Speanburgh's situation.