On November 15, 2011, in a paramilitary-style operation under cover of night. complete with a press blackout, the NYPD routed and dispersed occupiers from the (Zuccotti) park. They were given only a few minutes to grab their personal possessions, and then evicted forcibly. True to the theme of “They tried to crush us; they didn’t know we were seeds,” the protestors scattered back to their home cities to serve as catalysts and carry the flag of the 1% vs. the 99%.

Veterans from the original OWS have launched a celebration and information website at www.Occupy2026.org and are planning a peaceful (of course) visit to Zuccotti Park. These 33,000 square feet (roughly three-quarters of an acre) is arguably the center of one of the most important post-2000 protests, replicated across the US with 42 major occupations in over 600 communities across 27 states.

Globally, it spread to 951 cities across 82 countries.

And today?

Occupy’s DNA can be found in almost every protest and activist actions that followed: The Fight for $15, The Sunrise Movement, Anti-Pipeline Resistance, Black Lives Matter, Women’s March, environmental activism, March for Our Lives, Indivisible, and continuing today in Community Mutual Aid Networks, Anti-Eviction and Housing Security Movements, and electoral populism.

Oh yes, not to forget No Kings Day, 350.org,  and Th!rd Act. Bill McKibben, who founded 350 and Third Act, contributed a short film remarking on the growth of solar power from 15 years ago to the Occupy360 site. A major Influencer, he connected corporate greed to environmental destruction and “occupying our atmosphere” and led massive teach-in’s at Zuccotti to enroll Occupiers in his sit-ins and marches.

Free (of debt) at last! – Occupy’s Financial Impact

America is largely unaware of the inspiring work of Occupiers who were inspired to make a difference that people talk about, but few experience.

Craig Antico and I, two former debt collection industry executives initially provided advisory services to Occupy’s Rolling Jubilee 501(c)(3), and were inspired in 2014 to co-found what became Undue Medical Debt.

UMD has since abolished more than $49 billion in medical debt for over 31 million Americans – making it the largest medical debt relief effort ever in the US and turning Occupy’s critique of predatory debt into a functioning machine for forgiving it.

That same instinct produced the Debt Collective, born directly out of Occupy’s 2011 demand to cancel student debt. Starting with the Rolling Jubilee’s crowdfunded debt buybacks and the country’s first student debt strike at Corinthian Colleges, the group has since secured billions of dollars in loan cancellation for hundreds of thousands of borrowers.

Considering that Occupy was declared a failure by most critics, and decried by for not having clear goals or demands, that’s a pretty fair rebuttal. But, that’s not all..

Celebrity Support

Here’s a partial list of notable figures whose support ranged from on-site visits and speeches, vocal backing on social media and in the press, and even financial support and supplies:

Susan Sarandon, Kanye West, Russell Simmons, Roseanne Barr, Michael Moore, Tim Robbins, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Alex Baldwin Yoko Ono and Jane Fonda.

On to Greater Things…

Occupy educated and contributed a fair share of graduates or major supporters to America’s political scene: Letitia James, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Zohran Mamdani, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

It was just as influential in shaping the thinking or careers of media figures and authors such as Natash Lennard, Chris Hedges, David Graeber, Naomi Klein, Caleb Crain, “Lemony Snicket,” Margaret Atwood and Salmon Rushdie.

As for musicians (what would revolution be without its musicians and artists?), consider this lineup: Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine), Jeff Mangum, Pete Seeger (who led a march through Manhattan), Arlo Guthrie, Hip-Hop artists Talib Kwell and Lupe Fiasco, Third Eye Blind. A fundraising “Occupy This Album” had Yoko Yono, Debbie Harry, Jackson Browne, Willie Nelson and Immortal Technique among the contributors.

This Article is the First in a Series

As Occupy is one of nine experiences I am devoting chapters to in The Unintended Activist (TUA), and I am in the working group Occupy2026 which is behind the 15th Anniversary celebration, I intend to write about its public reception this coming Thursday, September 17, 2026, and the reverberations to follow. Hang in there with me..

By Jerry Ashton