Occupy Kentucky: A Parade and a Profile

In Lexington and Louisville, Occupiers are ramping it up and hanging in there.

From the Courier:

With the wind whipping around Jefferson Square Park in downtown Louisville on Sunday, nearly 70 supporters and members of the protest group known as Occupy Louisville kicked off a week of activities called Seven Days of Solidarity.

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The week’s activities continued with the march for peace from Baxter Avenue and Bardstown Road to the Douglass Loop with more than 100 people, some carrying signs and others playing drums and tambourines or shaking gourds.

Pam Newman, 30, a musician and freelance writer from western Louisville who was marching, has been involved in organizing this week’s events. She said she and others want to connect with people throughout the community, including those working on social justice issues, to talk more about the protesters’ concerns about the country.

“I really hope that after this week more people come to the occupation to get involved and experience it,” she said.

The Herald:

At dusk on Main Street on Friday night, 11 participants in the protests called Occupy Lexington gathered beside a tent outside Lexington's Chase Bank to discuss strategy for their 24-hours-a-day demonstration against major banks and corporations.

At least six in the group had to consider class schedules before they could commit to taking a shift at the protest site.

College students from the University of Kentucky and Bluegrass Community and Technical College are taking a large role in the demonstrations in Lexington, which is among at least 100 U.S. cities where demonstrations have sprung up in the Occupy Wall Street movement that began in September in New York City's Financial District.

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Stephen Shepard, who facilitated the protesters' discussion — called a General Assembly — on Friday night, estimated that about half of the 70 people who regularly gather at the protest site on Main Street are college students. Shepard is a cartographer for the state Department of Revenue and said he plans to take some classes at UK in the spring.

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BCTC student Steven Burt said he didn't think the approaching winter weather would thwart the demonstrations.

"We're getting prepared for it," he said.

In some cities this weekend, police and government officials have been working to shut down Occupy protests that they say have become unsafe. And other times in the nearly two months of the movement's protests, there have been conflicts with police in other cities.

In Lexington, "the demonstration has been peaceful," said Susan Straub, a spokeswoman for Mayor Jim Gray.

Join your local occupation today.