ST. LOUIS • The office worker was clearly curious. He stood reading the dozens of handmade protest signs lying on the grass at Kiener Plaza — the fledging home for the past week of Occupy St. Louis protesters — cardboard signs lying like seashells on a beach, a cacophony of different and sometimes conflicting messages just waiting to be picked up and heard.
He was not alone. All last week, office workers — along with tourists, commuters, joggers, residents and baseball fans heading to nearby Busch Stadium — all browsed the scene unfolding at the park and sunken amphitheater in the heart of the city's downtown, taking it in. It was as if they were window shopping, seeing what these protesters had to say, whether it was something they could get behind or laugh off.
The office worker, in a red polo shirt bearing a corporate logo, looked unsure. A protester, a young woman in black-framed glasses, handed him a flier. He hesitated.
People are also reading…
"Let me ask you a question," he said. "That sign over there says 'Replace Capitalism.' But replace it with what?"
The woman laughed. "Yeah, well ..."
The protesters had no single message, at least not yet. Some railed against capitalism. Others wanted only to fix the market economy, she said, so it did not seem so skewed toward so few people and corporations.
This St. Louis protest was a small off-shoot of Occupy Wall Street, the gathering in New York that has inspired protests in dozens of U.S. cities and that has managed, for the moment, to grab the nation's attention. This protest so far was focused on the "dangerous" effects of concentrating so much wealth among the nation's top 1 percent, she said. "There are a variety of voices speaking out on the same thing."
In its first week in St. Louis, the group experienced the fits and starts, disagreements and struggles for control, the battles with police and its own members, that could be expected of any group trying to find its legs — and its meaning. As the days passed, the group appeared to grow in number, bolstered by growing support from established activists and unions. Yet critics have noted the lack of clear talking points and sound bites from the Occupy movement. Some protesters also bemoaned the lack of clear demands, worrying it was holding back more support. In an age of immediacy, impatience ran high.
But veteran activist Bill Ramsey, 63, a St. Louis resident who got his start in the anti-war movement and has observed Occupy St. Louis from the sidelines, said he was impressed by the movement's youthful energy. Years had passed since he had seen something so spontaneous. "It's snowballing," Ramsey said. "You can't put it aside like a flash in a pan."
The St. Louis group debuted only last Saturday, two weeks after the Wall Street protest began. Occupy St. Louis started out by the St. Louis Federal Reserve building at Fourth and Locust streets. The group hoped to camp in a tiny park by the Fed, but it was private property. Police suggested Kiener Plaza, a few blocks away, recalled early organizer Apollonia Childs, 25, an Army private on a medical leave who was motivated by her mother's loss of first a job and then her house in Washington Park.
Since then, Kiener Plaza has been home to Occupy St. Louis. The cast revolved with the days — sometimes about 20 people and a smattering of tents, but also more than 150 people some nights after work. They were college kids and baristas, union floor-layers and aging hippies, hotel clerks and kitchen cooks, some homeless and some reading on iPads.
***
The easy symbolism offered by Wall Street was not to be found in St. Louis. But targets for the group's anger were still at hand. On Wednesday, it was Bank of America, which has a namesake office tower at the corner of Walnut and Market streets, a block away. Protesters sat on the amphitheater steps as Cathy de la Aguilera, 29, with Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment, explained the mission. She wanted a large show of force. Call your friends, she said. Get them out here.
"We want to go over there and demand they pay their fair share and stop foreclosing people's homes," she said.
At 4 p.m., as fans headed to a playoff baseball game, the group marched. "We're going to make our run on the bank!" someone shouted. Private security guards and city police were waiting behind construction barricades blocking the building lobby's entrance.
The group tested out different chants. "Make them pay!" and "Hey, hey, ho, ho, corporate deadbeats got to go!" and the mouthful "We got to beat, beat the bank attack" — "What was that?" someone asked.
Protesters filled the street corner. "Your only guiding principle is profit," a woman shouted, "and it's killing America." Other shouts rang out. People began sharing personal stories of homes foreclosed. Passing vehicles honked in support and offered shouts of criticism.
"Get a job!" yelled a man in a Cardinals hat riding past in a pickup.
The protester nearest the street at that moment was Megan Williams, 24. She had her infant son strapped in a carrier to her chest and held a white sign reading, "How did the cat get so fat?"
"We do have jobs," Williams said, although the truck was long gone.
Her fiancé worked as a cook at a restaurant in St. Charles. She took care of two kids. She had been looking for a job in medical administration for months, ever since earning her trade certificate.
"My cellphone just got turned off today. Gas bill, electric, they're overdue," said Williams, her red hair tied in twin braids under a tie-dyed handkerchief. "I grew up poor. And it looks like I'm going to stay that way unless my voice is heard."
***
The protest ended peacefully after about 30 minutes, no arrests, unlike the nightly incidents involving the park's curfew.
Occupy St. Louis was sincere about the 24-hour-a-day occupation. But Kiener Plaza, like all city parks, is closed from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Police let the protesters stay the first two nights. But at 4:30 a.m. Tuesday, police issued citations to a handful of protesters who refused to leave. The next night, police arrested about 10 protesters for violating curfew.
At a group meeting Thursday night, people crowded around the amphitheater's small stage, faces illuminated by streetlights, the office towers mostly dark, the Gateway Arch glowing red. Some protesters worried that the battle to stay in Kiener Plaza threatened to overshadow the larger mission. Some complained about the news media's being too focused on the arrests. A woman raised her hand. Had anyone heard about the letter to the protesters from Mayor Francis Slay?
"Anybody want me to read it?" she asked.
They did. She pulled up the letter on her smartphone. Slay wrote that he was sympathetic to the cause. But the parks have a curfew. "You have every right to protest peacefully," Slay wrote. "You have every obligation to obey the law or accept the consequences of not doing so."
The protesters cheered.
"Oh, that was a good one," someone said.
"I think it's great we're getting attention," added another.
Then a union official jumped on stage. Richard von Glahn, organizer director with CWA Local 6355, said he had talked on the phone with city Police Chief Dan Isom. A way to avoid arrests had been found. When the police came next, people had to move to the sidewalks, which were not subject to a curfew. And no one was arrested that night.
***
How much longer Occupy St. Louis will hold its ground remains unknown.
Last week, a stocky young man named Nick bent down in the grass with a black marker and some cardboard. He was making a protest sign. Nick, 21, is a college student living in Sunset Hills. He asked that his last name not be used because he's new to this protesting thing. He worried how it would reflect on his family. Nick was compelled to join the movement by a mountain of student debt and a bleak job market, a feeling that something has gone very wrong with the economy.
After his first day protesting, Nick talked with his dad, a businessman. His dad said, "Yeah, I give it a day."
That was a few days ago, Nick said. No one seemed to know how long this might run. Nick leaned back from his sign. It was a message to his father, but it could have been to others, too.
It read: "Movement ended yesterday? We're still here."
