Ronaldo Sobral came to Woodruff Park not to be heard but to listen, to watch and to judge the appeal of Occupy Atlanta. One thing he noticed, moving through the crowd, listening at the edge of conversations, was that white faces far outnumbered dark ones such as his.
That is a reality, both in Atlanta and nationally: From the beginning, most movement participants have been white. Over time, more and more people have taken note, giving rise to a swelling national debate about the whys and so-whats. Some people see the lack of diversity as a failing, others see it as irrelevant.
But economic facts lend a certain irony: A movement born of anger over the gulf between the rich and the rest is only gradually attracting the very groups who have felt the brunt of economic inequality, both historically and as a result of the Great Recession.
The upshot is simple, says Tim Franzen, an organizer of Occupy Atlanta: "If we are going to say we represent 99 percent of the people, then we have to represent them."
Otherwise, he and others said, the lack of diversity could undercut the Occupy movement's ability to spur change in the country, and particularly in a city with as strong an African American presence as Atlanta.
"In order for them not to come off as spoilers who are just complaining, they need the moral authority of the black and brown community," said John Hope Bryant, founder of the Atlanta-based Operation Hope, a nonprofit that educates low-income people on financial issues.
"It's disappointing that there haven't been more [African American] people there," said Bob Holmes, former director of the Southern Center for Studies in Public Policy. "Maybe it's got to do with cynicism or that people have given up hope."
Sobral, who works as a designer, said he suspects that many minorities are too consumed by their own economic tribulations to participate. “They’re dealing with their own survival,” he said.
But the protesters in Woodruff Park also stumbled early on, affronting some African Americans by telling civil rights icon U.S. Rep. John Lewis on Oct. 7 that he would have to wait his turn along with everyone else to address the group. A video of the protracted debate over his request to speak has received almost 500,000 hits on YouTube.
Occupy Atlanta organizers later acknowledged their mistake and invited Lewis back. They're also reaching out to bring more diversity under the tents. They hope to attract more people of color to their cause as they share the park this weekend with a hip-hop music show. Occupy Atlanta has also used Twitter feeds to issue invitations to students from Atlanta University Center.
One African American who witnessed the John Lewis incident was Russell Robertson of Austell. His response was to help establish Occupy the Hood Atlanta, which has taken the message to minority communities that this is their fight, too.
He said the group, modeled after similar efforts in other cities, is not a criticism of Occupy Atlanta but a sister effort aimed at bringing more diversity to the gathering at Woodruff Park.
"We're focusing on neighborhoods, passing out fliers," said Robertson, 41, who is a collection agent for a law office. "We are the least represented group. Power belongs to the people, and we are the people."
At Woodruff Park, meanwhile, the number of African Americans in the gathering has increased over the course of the two-week-old occupation.
Malcolm McKenzie has emerged as one organizer in the day-to-day planning of the group, McKenzie, 25, who is black, said he sees the face of the group slowly changing. When Mayor Kasim Reed extended the protester's permission to camp in the park, McKenzie made the announcement to the group.
"We don't want people to feel uncomfortable to come here," he said.
That same night, a black church group held a service there one night, emphasizing unity with the park protesters. "We understand the foreclosures and lack of jobs," said Bishop Michael Robinson of Almighty Movement of God in Ministries.
For now, though, few of Atlanta's black elected officials have publicly supported the movement. Indeed, some have criticized it. City Councilman Ivory Lee Young Jr., who chairs the council's public safety commission, said the group lacked purpose and that the gathering seemed "nothing more than a camp-out."
Andrew Young, a civil rights leader and former Atlanta mayor, interprets what he see a bit differently: as an awakening among people for who economic insecurity is a new phenomenon.
"This is really a poor people's movement -- the poor people being students," he said. "The white kids in the park are kids of privilege who have seen their privileges taken away."
Young said he has offered to accompany the mayor to the park, because he sees much in common between this movement and the civil rights struggles of the sixties. Young was among the thousands who camped out in Washington as part of the Poor People's Campaign in 1968, just months after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
In a way, he said, he's glad that Occupy Atlanta is perceived as a white-led movement. If it were predominantly black, he said, it would be even more polarizing.
"The less these issues are racial, the more apt we are to get some solutions," he said.
If King were alive today, Young said, he would join those gathered at Woodruff Park.
"I think he'd have me out there," Young said.
Staff writer Jeremiah McWilliams contributed to this report.
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