Students on the OccupyChicago Movement
Ever wondered what is Occupy Chicago 2011? Or have you ever even heard of it before?
Occupy Chicago is a movement that caused a massive streak of peaceful demonstrations and protests in Chicago that took place between 2011 and 2013. Initially, the creation of this movement was inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protests that sparked in New York during the same time. The first protests on September 24 were held in solidarity with the New York’s protestants until the Occupy movement in Chicago grew into a massive, fully independent movement against corporate greed, the influence lobbyists and corporations have on government, and economic inequality.
Despite the fact that the Chicago protest schedule between 2011 and 2013 was pretty intensive, protestants did their best to keep it peaceful. Nevertheless, participants numerously ran into trouble with the local police.
Who participated in the movement? You may be surprised, but among 3,000+ participants, there were quite many young people. A huge share of protestants were students like you. The biggest reason that caused many students to join the movement was the fact that this movement attempted to bring public attention to a wide range of economic and social issues, including student debt. Due to this reason, the movement became a common topic for essays and academic papers.
If you are assigned to write an essay on Occupy Chicago, the professional online essay writer from EssayService is always there to help you. And if you are just interested in learning more about it, read on!
Where Did the Occupy Movements Originate From?
As was already mentioned, the seed that spawned the growth of the Occupy movement is the Occupy Wall Street protest that began on September 17, 2011. The core aim of this civil protest action was to drive everyone’s attention to the problems of the “crimes of the financial elite.” In the process of the protest, a huge crowd took over the financial center of New York - Wall Street and demanded massive changes in the country’s economy.
The ongoing protests in New York soon gained a lot of support all across the US. According to CBS News, over 40% of Americans reported that they share the ideas of protestants. As a result, this protest triggered a large number of solidarity protests that took place in the US and around the world.
One of the most known movements caused by this event was Occupy Chicago. Slightly later after the OccupyChicago protest, in October of the same year, more protests arose in the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Germany, Hungary, Slovenia, Finland, Latin America, as well as in the Middle East and North Africa. Also, protestants spoke up across hundreds of other American cities, including Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, Miami, Philadelphia, etc.
What Are the Core Ideas of the Occupy Chicago Movement?
In a nutshell, the core aim of the Occupy movement is to address the ongoing global financial crisis and make changes. From Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Chicago to every single protest across the US and the world, the main ideas of the movement remained unchanged.
So, what were the core objectives of the Occupy movement? The movement spans a large number of social and economic issues. To name a few, according to the Occupy Nation (a book devoted to this movement), the primary issues addressed by the protestants across the country, and by Chicago community activists, in particular, included:
Social and economic inequality;
The lack of “true” democracy;
The control of the large corporations over the government;
Environmental and economic justice;
Income inequality;
Student debt, etc.
As you can see, if you are a student assigned to write a paper on this topic, you will have plenty of ideas to write about in your essay. But don’t forget that EssayHub online essay service is the place where you can get essay writing help. Thus, if you don’t know where to start, lack time for writing, or just don’t want to spend hours writing an essay, feel free to contact us to get your A-level paper!
Occupied Chicago Tribune
Speaking of the Occupy movement, it is simply impossible not to mention the Occupied Chicago Tribune.
The Occupied Chicago Tribute (occupiedchicagotribune.org) was a news website developed during the period of the mass protests in Chicago by local students, journalists, activists, designers, and Occupiers. As you can easily guess, the whole website was devoted to the ideas, messages, events, and news related to the ongoing strikes.
At first, the site was small. But it quickly gained popularity. A year after the site was created, in 2012, the WIPO panel even recognized this resource to be legitimate and worth trusting.
What not many know is that there also were printed issues of the Occupied Chicago Tribute. What is more, the newspaper turned out to be rather popular. Due to its popularity in Chicago, it caused a few similar newspapers to spring up across other cities in the US. In particular, during the same time, there were Occupied Washington Times, Boston Occupier, and the Occupied Providence Journal.
Today, this resource is no longer active. The strikes are long over, and if you open the website now, it will show you an error. The only thing you can find on this request is the official Facebook page of the Occupied Chicago Tribune, which remains somewhat active. Nevertheless, this resource played a big role in this movement. Thus, the experts from "do my essay for cheap" service stress the importance of mentioning it in your paper in case you are writing about the Occupy Chicago protests.
The Role of Students in the OccupyChicago
Interestingly enough, before the interest that sparked during the Occupy Chicago protests, only a handful of the University of Chicago students used to participate in all sorts of group demonstrations. However, as OccupyChicago was gaining momentum, the interest and inspiration kept growing. And students from various Chicago universities used this inspiration to write their essays. Half of them managed to cover the topic completely because they used essay writer online services from a professional service PaperWriter. It was all done for one purpose: to raise their voices and fight for things that matter.
As was later reported, students of different ages actively participated in further protests. There were many student participants during the protests and demonstrations at Thompson Center and indoor space at 500 W. Cermak in 2011 and 2012. According to various resources, many students even got arrested during the Occupy movements.
In the framework of this movement, students mostly supported ideas against capitalism and economic and social inequality. They also participated in the creation of the Occupied Chicago Tribune.
One of the key events organized by students was the trauma center campaign. The core goal of it was to make the authorities reopen the trauma center at the South Side hospital. The center was closed in 1988 for budgetary reasons. Later, there was a loud case of a young man who was wounded during a drive-by shooting near the South Side hospital but was transported 10 miles away since the trauma center was closed and died.
To drive attention to the problem, students organized many Halloween demonstrations as a part of the Occupy movement. They marched through the campus dressed as zombies and demanded the trauma center to be reopened.
Are the Occupy Protests Still Going On?
According to the general chronology, the Occupy protests in Chicago ceased on February 1, 2013. After eight years, there were no more protests as a part of Occupy movements.
Nevertheless, not all agree that the movement is over. Even though the rage of the Occupy Chicago movement doesn’t burn anymore, many believe that the movement actually inspired many of the present-day strikes, such as Black Lives Matter. Indeed, certain ideas of both movements are shared. But, still, there are no official confirmations that the Occupy movement is somehow connected with the BLM or any other movement of the past years.