Robert Brashear, a pastor and father of three, was 61 years old and living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan when Occupy Wall Street took Liberty Square. His participation in Occupy began that first day and continued in the years following the eviction of the protesters from the park. He tells me his Occupy history during the week of the 10th Anniversary.
I was the pastor of a church we were in the process of trying to revive, a church that had fallen on hard times. It had gone through a lot of challenges.
I was also always involved in public service and political activities. In 2011, I was a Chair of the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and housing, working for homeless people in the city, and I’ve always been involved in progressive causes of one kind or another throughout my life.
Very shortly after the Liberty Square encampment started, I went down to see what was going on.
Photo by Daniel Oliverio
What do you remember of that first experience? What was that like?
I started going on almost a daily basis, and I was struck by the fact that it seemed to be sort of equal parts political protest and performance art, in a sense. I was struck, from the start, by the creativity and the humor that went along with what was happening.
How do you mean?
I remember, for example, somebody had created an Occupy Lego Land, created this giant Lego display that was supposed to represent what it looked like there in Liberty Square, all kinds of artwork in the park. At all the marches that took place, there were always signs that had a great deal of humor. The sense of creativity was always very, very present to me.
Do you remember the first large protest you participated in with Occupy, and what that was like?
I can’t remember what the first one was like. There were many, many marches.
I remember marching across the Brooklyn Bridge. I remember any number of them.
As far as what they were like: To me, they were not all that different from other marches I’ve participated in throughout my life, very, very similar in nature. Although, I do remember interactions between protesters and some of the police and guards that were surrounding, which, for the most part, were very, very positive.
One important thing about Occupy is all the different kinds of work on the ground by the people participating, to start it and keep it going. You alluded, for example, to the creative and artistic aspects. What was your work in Occupy? What was your primary way of working in the movement?
As far as the interactions began, aside from just visiting to see what was going on, and being a body, the first time the relationship began to get filled was the first time the rumor spread that they were going to come drive the people out of Liberty Square.
I arrived with some other church members to make a barrier to try to prevent that, if possible. At that point, I was able to connect with several young seminary students who were, I remember, using brooms and other things to try to clean the area, and I developed relationships with those seminary students.
But, it really became major, for me, when the eviction took place, and 100 Occupiers came to live at my church. That’s when we became a housing place for the people. And we became the regular meeting place for the spokescounsel. At various times, we had people visit, Michael Moore and other people.
So, becoming an actual home for people to live in was the major contribution that I made.
Let’s come back to that later as well. What is your fondest memory, or a few memories, of the movement itself?
I should’ve also said that as a minister and a pastor, I participated with other clergy who would go down there, from various religious events. I also remember going with Jewish friends to the High Holy Day (NTS) celebrations that were held in Liberty Square. I remember going with other friends for spiritual gatherings.
It was one of the most holistic experiences of protest I’ve ever experienced, in terms of the way that Liberty Square really took on life as a real community, with a kitchen and with a library, and with daily educational events. I think all of that was really important.
I think the main thing, more than anything, was the sense of almost innocent good humor about the whole thing.
What about your most difficult memory, your least fond memory?
The most difficult memories are having to deal with the realities of people that were living within my church.
The people who lived in my church, who I got to know, ranged from idealistic young people, who were willing to set everything aside and devote their lives to trying to create a better world for people with serious mental illness and substance abuse issues, and some chronic homelessness. That’s a very difficult population to keep together in any kind of meaningful way.
And we had to contend with things like theft, and not so often but occasional violence, and it was a real experience in idealism facing up to reality, and that was very hard for some of my more idealistic friends.
We had this one incident that became an international incident, where the top of our baptismal fountain got stolen, and I got very angry about that.
Somehow, that made it into the New York Post and all around the Murdoch papers, and the right-wing was really trying to make something of that. And we had to make it very clear that the vast bulk of people living there were ready to take responsibility and deal with it.
The beautiful outcome of that was: One of the parents of one of the Occupiers was an artist and created a beautiful ceramic top to replace the copper top that had been stolen.
It made for a very symbolic blending of new and old, and it was a very special occasion when we brought that out. Even though the right-wing really tried to make a lot of that, the end of the story was very beautiful.
But, just the reality of all the problems people brought with them into that situation, it was very difficult to deal with.
I was very happy to have a team of volunteer chaplains from Union Seminary to help out. It couldn’t have happened and been done without them.
What were Occupy’s greatest strengths as a movement?
The first was the capacity to literally change the language of the conversation about economics in the country, to make the concept of the “one percent” a really commonly understood idea.
Secondly, it was the fact that they were, pretty consciously, a space and not necessarily a solution.
I remember one conversation with people on the outside of Liberty Square. It was lunchtime and there were people yelling at the Occupy folks, “WHAT’S YOUR SOLUTION?”
And the response from the people I was with was, “Well, what’s YOUR solution?” And that stopped that. (laughs)
So, it wasn’t prescriptive. It was a space for many, many wonderful things to happen. And I think that the commitment, even though it ultimately became part of the downfall, to be completely accepting of everyone, on principle, was very significant.
Talk about some of your experiences with police, either uniformed or undercover, or both, or neither if you didn’t have major experiences with them.
Well, yeah. I mean, I have a couple of things to talk about.
One, I was visited by local police and told that I had to report to the precinct office. And I came in and sat down in couple of detectives’ office, and the detectives left, and two other guys came in and said they were with Homeland Security. And they began asking questions.
And I said, “I’m not going to answer any more questions.”
And they said, “Well, you know we’ve got people in your place. Don’t you?”
And I said, “Well, I don’t know whether you do or not, but I’m not going to talk with you anymore.”
So, that was the first thing that happened.
A few days later, two guys from the FBI came to my office and started asking the same questions, and I said, “You know, I just had those same questions asked by Homeland Security. Don’t you guys talk to each other?”
I was taken by the fact that we were clearly being watched. And I have no doubt in my mind that they were absolutely right when they said they had people that they had planted within our place.
I am equally convinced, although you can’t say I can absolutely prove it, that some of the more difficult problems were caused by provocateurs who had been placed.
What were they asking you? From what you could gather, why did they seem interested in you?
They were interested in names and trying to discern if there was actual leadership. I think they were trying to figure out if there were particular people they ought to be focused on.
I think because the basic concept and idea behind Occupy was that the whole system is messed up, it was perceived as potentially a very serious threat, possibly a threat. And the fact that there were expressions of Occupy happening all over the world, I think there was a sense, for a brief while, that this could really be a potential threat to the system as it exists.
Because no one was being put forward as leaders, I think they were trying to figure out, “Are there particular folks that we ought to be focusing on?”
Our government has a history, with movements like the Black Panthers and so forth, of taking out leadership, literally. I think there was a desire to try to find out, “Are there particular people in Occupy that we ought to take out in order to bring this down?”
What was the day of the eviction from Liberty Square like for you?
Fairly quickly, word went out that we were going to have to find places for people to stay, and the request was, “Could we take a hundred people?”
So, very rapidly, we had to figure out, “Where are we going to put a hundred people?” “How are we going to handle things like restrooms?” There were all sorts of logistical questions. I had to have a number of volunteers come in and help us get set up.
Of course, I remember the hours going by as the people kept streaming in. I don’t think I got any sleep for about three days.
So, it was a matter of simply trying to figure out where to put people and how to take care of people and to be ready to make it work.
Were you present at the eviction itself? Did you see that happen?
I did not see it happen, no. I had been there the first time it was predicted when we were able to stop it, but the actual day of the eviction, I did not see it.
How many other churches opened their doors to Occupy protestors, or how unique was that to your church?
There were several. I think we probably had people living with us longer than any others. We had people there for over a year. It was a much smaller group by the end. It went from a hundred down to about two dozen over the course of the year, and I think there were finally about a dozen who were forming a cooperative.
So, we had Occupiers living with us for over a year after the eviction.
Like I say, we were a small church, but there were a lot of arts and cultural things going on. Occupiers provided staff services, and the Occupying group that was there started a t-shirt company.
That was all quite an experience.
I think we did have people stay with us longer than most others. Many churches found it was very problematic trying to house that population for any extended period of time for the various reasons that I mentioned, the number of people with mental health problems and people with substance abuse issues.
Was the choice, firstly, to participate in the movement in general, but also to take people in after the eviction, tied to your faith in any way?
Being engaged with the world around me, trying to make the world a more humane, just, inclusive, and sustainable world, has been a lifetime commitment as an expression of my faith.
So, the fact that Occupy was happening when it was happening, that was the place I needed to be at that time. Like I said, it’s been a lifetime commitment.
The Occupation of Liberty Square ended. On that day, there were many other crackdowns on other major Occupy encampments. Many were evicted from the park, figured out what they were going to do next, how and where to survive. But, especially from your perspective, having continued to be involved after that, did the Occupy Movement end?
As a movement named “Occupy Wall Street,” sure, it had an end. On the other hand, it had an extended life. And I want to talk about that for a moment.
At a bigger, more visible level, one of the most amazing experiences for me was being involved with people in Occupy Sandy following Hurricane Sandy. There were two guys from Occupy who had lived at my church, who went to a town on Staten Island immediately and volunteered, and used the social media connections of Occupy to begin bringing things there.
So, a couple days later, when the police wanted to set something up in this beach town in Staten Island and they went to the church and said, “Well, we want to set something up, but we can’t work with these Occupy people,” the priest said, “Well, they were here first. They were here before you. So, if you’re going to do anything, you’ve got to work with them.”
And it was amazing that they developed a sense of mutual respect, and they had extended what they were doing out onto the sidewalks and out into public spaces.
And when the police sent currently uniformed people to shut it down, there was an amazing coalition of police and retired Occupiers who faced down the police and made them leave. I thought that was an amazing example of how the spirit had continued.
I know at least half a dozen people who had been involved in Occupy, who stayed in the city, because they’d come to love the city, and became involved in various political campaigns so that the next round of City Council elections, there were at least half a dozen or so candidates elected from the democratic socialist perspective, and former Occupiers had been directly involved in that.
Part of what I’m trying to say is: In ways that are not necessarily openly visible and named, Occupy has continued to have a serious and real impact.
Also, when the climate march took place, much of the infrastructure for the climate marches that took place in New York City was created by people who had gained their experience in organizing with Occupy.
So, there is a through line.
From Occupy to the environmental movement to Black Lives Matter, folks who got their feet wet in Occupy have stayed consistent.
Where do you feel the country has gone since Occupy?
I feel, on the one hand, that the country is more dangerously divided than I’ve seen it in my life, that there are significant numbers of people who do not believe in democracy anymore and are pretty open about it.
Strangely, at the same time, there is a broader understanding of the reality of systemic racism, and that the legacy of chattel slavery has continued to harm us, and that we will continue to be unhealthy until that’s dealt with. There is a much broader understanding of that.
So, two things have happened at the same time. Since Occupy, the dialectic has gotten drawn a lot more starkly than it was in the past.
Personally, politically, or both, what has been the significance of the 10th Anniversary to you?
I’m going to precede that by saying something else. One of the things that has so shocked and amazed me, until I’ve began to think about it, is the number of people who I knew from Occupy, and continue to be in touch with, who have fallen into, like, the anti-vaccination crowd, and in some cases, are very close to the QAnon crowd.
At first, I found that somewhat amazing. Then I began to think that if you were seriously connected to something, just because it had the position that you simply can’t trust the government and everything is screwed up, maybe that opens you up to these kinds of ideas?
At any rate, that is very surprising to me.
But, I think the 10th Anniversary gives us the opportunity to reflect back on what was inspiring and good about those days.
Again, the creativity and the humor, and the almost innocent belief that anything is possible, it’s good to go back and take a look at what we were thinking and feeling while that was happening, and to renew the conversation about the desperate income inequity in this country, not that that conversation has gone away, but the 10th Anniversary gives us an opportunity to revisit that in a serious way.
And it was really Occupy, if nothing else, that changed the language of that conversation.
It’s the 10th Anniversary. Are there any long-term plans for the Occupy Movement at the moment?
Not at the moment, but I’ve been trying to reach out to people who stayed at my church, to find out where they are in their lives now and what’s happened between then and now, and how Occupy might have inspired them.
I haven’t gotten a whole lot of responses back yet, but I’m very interested in that. And I am encouraging the church to try to do something in the next couple of months that would take a look at that time.
Politically, what are your greatest concerns about where the world is headed now, 10 years after Occupy?
I understand that these things go in cycles, but I am extremely concerned about the rise of fascism, the attraction to it in this country. It’s very hard to accept that at least 45 percent of my fellow citizens see this country and this world in a radically fascist way.
I feel that the damage done to the structures and the cultures of democracy in this country over the last several years, flawed as they were, it is going to take a long time to recover from. And I’m not sure how much that’s going to happen.
The attacks on access to voting, the situation in Texas of paying your neighbors to report people for abortions, are very, very dangerous trends.
And you see a similar kind of leadership emerging in places like Hungary, and Bolsonaro in Brazil, and others. I think this is a situation on the rise globally that we have to be very, very concerned with.
At the same time, the whole situation with global warming and the climate remains very, very serious.
Not unrelated to that is our global situation of migration and people on the move. That’s been one of my biggest places of involvement these last several years, the movement for justice in migration because as societies continue to crumble, people will be more and more on the move. And there are more people on the move now than any other time in history, and they die in the desert and they die in the Mediterranean and countries close their borders.
So, all these things are very much on my heart and mind.
I really think that people who criticize Occupy for not having had clear goals and objectives and points to negotiate, etcetera, missed the point.
To me, the point was to open space for a conversation that had not taken place, to try to create a new way of decision making, a new way of participating, a revival of grassroots democracy.
Matthew Vernon Whalan's work has appeared in New York Journal of Books, Alabama Political Reporter, Scheer Post, Eunoia Review, The Brattleboro Reformer, multiculturalbridge.org, occupywallst.nyc, Let's Rethink This, American Awakening, and other newspapers, journals, and websites around the country. He is the editor and head writer for The Hard Times Review. His main focus in the past few years has been oral history and journalism on homelessness and prisons in America. His book of investigative journalism, Doing Time, was the first book about American prisons during the COVID-19 pandemic. He is also the author of two oral histories on homeless life, which are called Homeless Anything Helps, and Memories, Dreams, and Reflections of THE American Buddhist. All of these came out in 2021 with Hard Times Review Press.