This past Saturday, WesKids and local protestors alike led a Middletown march against Bank of America. (The bank, that is. Not the infamous $45 Trident EP by Chilly Phoenix.) The organizers: the Community Banking Working Group of Occupy Wesleyan. The occasion: Move Your Money, a national nonprofit campaign to divest from America’s largest banks in favor of local credit unions.
As Middletown Patch tells it, the merry band of activists made their way to Main Street’s Bank of America branch, where they flooded the entrance in caution tape and foreclosure notices. As the YouTube footage testifies, a few attempted to close their own accounts in the midst of the protest:
Those attempting to close their accounts were initially refused entry and told by bank representatives to leave the property.
A statement was read condemning the bank’s funding of mountaintop removal and “careless gambling of the health of the global economy” before students marched back to campus where representatives from local credit unions were present to help students open new accounts.
The first eleven photos are via Dan Fischer ’12. The rest—including wieb$ money shot—are courtesy of Mariama Eversley ’14. Video via the MoveYourMoneyWes YouTube channel.
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This is why our town-gown relations are so bad. Hooray! Let’s make life difficult for innocent people. We know how the local tellers at Middletown bank meet with Moynihan every day! You did not convince anybody. You just made us all look like silly hippies and made it harder for Wesleyan students who want to do legitimate things.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Because the banks take them away from us?
https://moveyourmoneywes.wordpress.com/
This is very stupid. Obviously they are not going to let you into their business if you are wrapping their property in caution tape and grafitting all over it. They have every right to do that. Do anything you want outside of the bank, but once you actually make it impossible for their customers to enter the bank if they wish, you have taken things too far and they have every right to treat you the way they did.
The front entrance to the bank was already closed when we got there. They were letting customers into the side entrance, but not this person who wanted to close their account.
http://lakejesupghost.bandcamp.com/album/the-trident
awesome
lol college
college is awesome. this is happening at thousands of other places, colleges and not, across the country, too: http://www.thenation.com/blog/167286/occupys-plans-take-down-bank-america