Looking Back: Occupy MHK October 15, 2011

I'm sure by now you all have at least heard of the Occupy Wall Street protests taking place in New York. Since they began almost a month ago, several solidarity protests have popped up around the country, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago, according to a NYT Topic page about the movement.

This past Saturday, Manhattan, Kan., joined the movement with a solidarity protest called "Occupy MHK." (For those who didn't know, like me, "MHK" is the airport code for Manhattan, Kan.) The event was held in Triangle Park, which is located on the edge of Aggieville, the downtown restaurant and shopping area in Manhattan, and also across the street from the K-State campus. Protesters lined up along Anderson Road, a main East-West street in town, displaying signs and showing their support for the 99%. All ages turned out, from children to seniors, with about 100 people in total. Considering how many other events were happening at the same time in Manhattan and a K-State football game on TV, I was impressed with the number of people who came.

Here are some selects I took of people preparing for the protest and the protest itself. It was a fairly straightforward assignment, so I tried to play around with light a little more than I usually do. Hope you like it!

This picture was from early in the protest. By the time I left the amount of people had doubled. 

The man in the orange shirt in the middle of this photo is Davey Rogner, one of the co-founders of a group called Pick Up America. They came through Manhattan and I photographed them picking up trash along highway 24 earlier in the week. His story is very interesting and he is a strong believer in grassroots movements and the ability of people to create change. For this reason, he came back to Manhattan to be part of the protest even though he and his group had already made it about 45 miles down the road to Clay Center, Kan.