bY Charles W. Kim, Packet Publications
They have many miles to walk to the nation’s capital and the determination to get there.
A group of 30 Occupy Wall Street protesters set out last week on a two-week march covering the more than 230 miles from Zucotti Park in lower Manhattan to Washington, D.C., bringing them through this area on Friday.
”I think the march has been amazing,” said co-organizer and mixed media artist Kelley Brannon, 27, of Ridgefield, Queens. “We’ve been doing amazing today.”
The group started out from New York on Nov. 9, stopping in Elizabeth and New Brunswick before heading south on Route 27 toward Trenton and Philadelphia.
Ms. Brannon said the idea for the long journey on foot came up among those involved in the Occupy Wall Street protest during its second week, but the final product was only recently planned and implemented in the last couple of weeks.
Despite being part of the two-month long protest in New York’s Financial District, Occupy Wall Street spokesman Harrison Schultz said the march was being conducted independently of the main movement.
The group walks about 20 to 30 miles each day during “banker’s hours” of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is expected to reach Washington in about two weeks, Ms. Brannon said.
”One of the biggest challenges is trying to stay on schedule and leave (rest stops) on time,” Ms. Brannon said. “We have been dragging a little bit in the morning.”
Between Rutgers University in New Brunswick and Princeton, the marchers stopped for lunch around noon at the Tastee Sub Shop II on Route 27 in Franklin Park.
The marchers met briefly before eating and decided, as a group, to use their own money instead of cash donations for the food.
During the break, some of the marchers hunkered down with their bedrolls on the sidewalk to rest their feet, while others used the time to eat and use the restaurant’s bathroom before heading back on the road.
”Three years ago I dropped out of society for a lot of the same reasons that Occupy Wall Street started,” said Murphysville, Illinois native and family farmer Garth Kiser, 31. “I had been waiting for something like this to happen, I had to be here as soon as I could.”
Mr. Kiser said he finally went to Zucotti Park, called “Liberty Square” by the occupiers, with his girlfriend three weeks ago and took in the experience while deciding how best he could help the movement.
”I felt the most important thing was outreach,” Mr. Kiser said. “Make this a global movement.”
Part of his individual goal is to unite the varied occupying groups throughout the world with a single communication infrastructure.
”(The march) felt like then best thing I could do at that point to achieve the goals I want to achieve,” Mr. Kiser said.
After consulting with his girlfriend, the pair joined the march the night before it left New York.
Mr. Kiser said the main challenge faced by the marchers, in his opinion, was the division of two distinct groups.
”There is a group of people who have done this type of thing before, long walks,” Mr. Kiser said. “There are some trying to pull ahead and some that are naturally falling behind.”
Mr. Kiser said there is some conflict between these two divisions as the walk progresses and there are those trying to help those two groups work together.
He also said the march might help unify what he sees as philosophical differences between the two most important groups in the Occupy protests.
Mr. Kiser said he believes there is a “rift” between the occupiers in New York and those in Washington, and he hopes the march will bridge the divide and unite both movements.
”They’re not all in the same camp,” Mr. Kiser said. “They will meet (us) in the same spot to greet this march, and we’re going to use that opportunity and the power this movement has brought out to unify everyone.”
Mr. Kiser said the reason the movement has not made any official demands is because many of those involved do not feel it is in a position to do that yet.
”First of all, we have to get the communication channels open globally so we can have a consensus,” Mr. Kiser said. “Then we can talk about demands once we know everyone’s voice can be heard.”
Others in the group seem to know exactly what the movement should accomplish.
”I believe we need to bring an end to all wars, bring an end to the military industrial complex, bring an end to the prison complex and radically change the way our political system works in society at all levels,” said Owen Johnson, 22, formerly of Vermont. “So that we can save the planet which we only have five to 10 years to do.”
Mr. Johnson, an artist by trade and currently unemployed, is also making the trek without shoes as part of his own individual protest.
