Occupy Boston

The Boston Occupier
Circulation	25,000
Website	bostonoccupier.com

Occupy Boston
Occupy Boston
Part of the Occupy movement
	People gathered near Boston's Dewey Square during Occupy Boston on October 3, 2011
Date	September 30, 2011 – December 10, 2011; (70-1/2 days)
Location	Boston, Massachusetts
Caused by	Economic inequality, Democracy, Racism, Sexism, Classism, Corporate influence over government, inter alia
Goals	Freedom, justice, democracy, building a beloved community
Methods	Demonstration, occupation, protest, street protesters, Civil Disobedience, Direct Action
Status	Occupation ended, protests ongoing
Arrests and injuries
Injuries	0
Arrested	186

Occupy Boston was a collective of protesters that settled on September 30, 2011 in Boston, Massachusetts, on Dewey Square in the Financial District opposite the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5] It is related to the Occupy Wall Street movement that began in New York City on September 17, 2011.^[6]

As of June 2012, Occupy Boston had continued to engage in organized meetings, events and actions.^[7]

Overview

On October 10, 2011, the Boston demonstrators expanded a tent city onto an additional portion of the Rose Kennedy Greenway; starting around 1:20 AM the following morning, 141 people were arrested by the officers of the Boston Police Special Operations Unit.^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11] Most of these cases were dismissed prior to arraignment with the agreement of the Suffolk County District Attorney's office. Tents were pitched in the following days, and by October 15 the camp itself had consisted of about 90 tents on either side of a path the protesters named, "Main Street," plus another two dozen or so tents divided up between the "Student Village" area and a strip of lawn the protesters named "Weird Street".^[12]^[13]

A tent library, later named the Audre Lorde to Howard Zinn (A to Z) Library was set up at the Occupy Boston encampment with the mission to "foster inquiry, learning, critical analysis and information-sharing among Occupy Boston occupiers, participants and visitors in order to better understand, challenge and transform interlocking systems of oppression".^[14]

Members of Occupy Boston marched with students at Harvard University on November 9, 2011, to found Occupy Harvard in Harvard Yard.^[15] The two groups later collaborated to interrupt a Newt Gingrich speech at Harvard on November 18.^[16]^[17]

By November 17, 2011 a judge issued an order prohibiting the eviction of protesters from Occupy Boston.^[18] On December 7, 2011 a Boston judge rescinded the temporary restraining order, allowing Boston Mayor Thomas Menino to remove the protesters from Dewey Square. At 5:00 AM on December 10, 2011, Boston police moved in and raided the Occupation of Dewey Square, with 46 people arrested.^[19]

Total cost of police overtime for Occupy Boston was around 1.4 million dollars.^[20]

The Boston Occupier

The Boston Occupier was an independent newspaper that was born out of the Occupy Boston movement. The title was originally The Occupy Boston Globe, but was changed shortly before the first publication in order to avoid association with the Boston Globe.^[21]

The newspaper launched in October 2011, with the first issue being released on November 18, 2011 with a run of 25,000 copies.^[22] The paper was funded with donations from a Kickstarter campaign, which raised approximately $9,300 in donations.^[23]^[24]