Since mid-September 2011, the Occupy Movement has exploded across the front pages and political consciousness of the US and the world. Contrary to both mainstream narratives as well as liberal accusations of “outside agitators” and “troublemakers,” anarchists have been involved in this trend since the very beginning. In New York, it was anarchists who initiated the first assemblies that developed into Occupy Wall St.; locally, anarchists called for and facilitated the first meetings which set up Occupy Chapel Hill, and have been involved in the occupation since. It is not a coincidence that, despite that broad diversity of perspective and sentiment at occupations, occupiers use modified versions of horizontal decision-making in their assemblies, and have consistently refused to engage with the political system and parties on their own terms.

Anarchists have been active in both the encampments as well as autonomous actions to help underscore the need for an anti-capitalist analysis in understanding the root cause(s) of the many grievances and inequalities for which occupiers are protesting. Actions such as marches, jail demos, the occupation of foreclosed homes by evicted families and their allies, the now infamous general strike in Oakland (the first in 65 years!), and building occupations around the country have been an example for where this movement can go once freed from the constraints of political parties and reformist tinkering with the economy. These kinds of actions have succesfully pointed a way forward for a movement whose initial expression–protest camps–has been broken up by authorities in a nationally coordinated effort at repression.

Examples of this locally can be found in the takeover of the Chrysler Building on Franklin St., where Occupy Chapel Hill participants and anarchists (not mutually exclusive categories) took over a vacant building and began the process of building a horizontally run, autonomous community center. That effort was suppressed at the barrel of a gun, literally, but the networks and connections made during that occupation, and in the marches and indignation that followed, continue. Stories about that struggle can be found in the archive of this site.