Occupy Wall Street Spreads: Protests Begin in Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Denver and Seattle

From the archive: first published October 2, 2011.

The protests against corporate America that began in New York City two weeks earlier spread across the country, with demonstrations starting in Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Denver and Seattle.

Sparked by the Occupy Wall Street movement — which had seen thousands of protesters camped in New York's Financial District for a fortnight — the gatherings shared a unified purpose: voicing anger at the U.S. banking and political systems. The New York protest entered its fifteenth day, having begun with little more than a dozen students.

In Los Angeles, several hundred protesters marched from Pershing Square to City Hall on Saturday, October 1, and said they would remain camped at the site "indefinitely," like their New York counterparts.

Organized by a group called Occupy LA, the demonstrators echoed the East Coast refrain, saying they hoped to change economic policies that benefit the richest one percent of Americans. Crowd members waved signs — including one that read "The Banks Ate My Baby" — and chanted "Hey hey, ho ho, corporate welfare's got to go," the Los Angeles Times reported.

"In the end, what we want to do is inspire working-class people to get involved in the political process," Adam Liszkiewics, a 32-year-old USC graduate student, told the paper.

Editor's note: this article was rewritten during our editorial review. The original 2011 version reproduced a press article verbatim; the text above is an original summary of the reported facts.