FACTS ABOUT OCCUPY WALL STREET

1. Who created Occupy Wall Street?

The original idea for Occupy Wall Street was created during a phone call between Kalle Lasn, the founder of Adbusters, and Micah White, an editor at the magazine.

Kalle, Micah and the rest of the Adbusters team then designed a poster and wrote a tactical briefing that called for the protest, named the protest, picked the first day of the protest and identified the key tactic of the protest.

Micah sent the first #OCCUPYWALLSTREET tweet and created the first Occupy Twitter account: @OccupyWallStNYC

The idea for Occupy Wall Street was taken up by roughly 200 activists in New York City who then organized for the first day of the protest.

2. Who are the founders of Occupy Wall Street?

There are roughly 200 people who responded to the call for Occupy Wall Street by holding organizing meetings at Tompkins Square Park in NYC prior to the launch date of September 17, 2011.

These activists used the email list september17 on Google Groups to organize and this website (OccupyWallSt.org) which was created by Justine Tunney.

It is possible to validate whether or not a individual was a founder of Occupy Wall Street by checking when they joined the september17 list.

The founders of Occupy Wall Street transformed the concept put forward by Kalle Lasn and Micah White into the on-the-ground protest in New York City.

3. Histories of Occupy Wall Street

• Pre-Occupied The origins and future of Occupy Wall Street

• Some assembly required Witnessing the birth of Occupy Wall Street

• The End of Protest: A New Playbook for Revolution

• We Are Many: Reflections on Movement Strategy from Occupation to Liberation

4. A word of caution about Occupy's social media accounts

The Occupy movement was crushed in 2012. After the collapse of the protest, various individuals continue to use the social media accounts. Not all of these social media accounts are being run by creators, or founders, of Occupy Wall Street. Furthermore, they are often pushing an agenda that is at odds with the spirit of Occupy.

See, for example, the case of @OccupyWallStNYC, the account originally created by Micah White, that was the subject of a lawsuit. Here is a New York Times article about the situation.

We do not recommend trusting social media accounts that continue to post as Occupy Wall Street.