It was the Rev. Dexter Johnson's first visit to Occupy Atlanta's general assembly, the deliberative drum circle in which all the group's major decisions are made.
"I thought, ‘Now this is strange,'" said the pastor of the Higher Ground Empowerment Center, a 108-year-old congregation in Vine City that just two weeks ago faced eviction by its lien holder. "They looked like a bunch of angry homeless people."
The finger waggling and mic checking can be disorienting to first-timers, but Johnson, 48, said he was moved by the group's passion.
Five days later, thanks largely to a relentless grass roots campaign by Occupy activists, Johnson's church was saved. BB&T, which had granted Higher Ground a substantial loan in 2007, agreed to sell the property back to the church at a reasonable price.
"One percent interest over 30 years," a beaming Johnson said when asked about the reworked financing. "[Occupy's] door-to-door approach is better than white bread!"
The Vine City church was just the latest victory for the nascent movement formed locally in early October to protest "the corporate takeover of America." They've been instrumental in saving three other homes from foreclosure, including one belonging to a disabled Iraq War veteran in Riverdale.
"They have touched the conscience of America," the Rev. Joseph Lowery said at a press conference last month hailing the group's efforts in securing Brigitte Walker, a career soldier medically discharged in 2007, a modified loan from Chase Bank.
It was an ironic turn of events for the movement that first garnered attention slighting another icon of the civil rights movement.
Rep. John Lewis, the Atlanta Democrat who had come to offer his support to the protesters who had just encamped at Woodruff Park, was not allowed to speak before the general assembly because, as one demonstrator said, "no singular human being is inherently more valuable than any other human being."
Though the opposition to Lewis speaking had more to do with process, the video was embarrassing. Footage of that assembly went viral, and the Atlanta occupiers were cast as spoiled white kids disrespecting a hero of Selma's Bloody Sunday.
And that was Day One.
"That hurt," said Occupy spokesman Tim Franzen from his cluttered office at the American Friends Service Community in downtown Atlanta, where he works as a community organizer. "It's not the way you want to start out."
While Franzen, 34, has become the public face of Occupy, don't call him its leader. Decisions, which require 90-percent consensus, are still made in general assembly, said Franzen, one of about 35 to 40 volunteers active in the group.
Many of them were present Oct. 26 when, after 20 days of often tedious negotiations between the city and protesters, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed ordered police to retake the park. Fifty-two protesters were arrested following a show of force that involved more than 100 officers. Reed told reporters the occupation had cost the city roughly $450,000.
Attempts to retake Woodruff Park and other public spaces fizzled, leaving many observers to wonder whether the group had become more concerned with antagonizing the mayor than fulfilling their mission.
"This was never about taking over the park," said Franzen, a native of the San Francisco Bay area. "The question became, ‘How can we get more than just symbolic actions?' We needed to get some wins for the people."
Their formula, aided by savvy utilization of social media, is simple enough.
"We treat each house like it's a symbol," Franzen said. "First, we set up tents around the property (and) hold a press conference; then we go door-to-door in the neighborhood so the community can know why we're here and so they can tell us what are the problems they face."
A national call to action follows. Occupy Atlanta delivered petitions with more than than 65,000 signatures -- many of them collected online -- to BB&T officials asking them to halt the church's eviction.
"The banks have bad enough press already," said Shab Bashiri, who's been with the movement since the beginning. "They don't want any more."
Bashiri is typical of Occupy's youthful, idealistic stalwarts. The 27-year-old musician quit her band after a recent tour because she didn't want to be away from the cause.
"We're actually keeping people in their homes," she said, noting the group has received requests from more than 200 families facing foreclosure. "That's fulfilling."
Critics persist, with many accusing the Occupy movement of fostering class warfare. GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign, for example, began circulating footage Thursday of the former Massachusetts governor forcefully responding to a protester's query about "supporting the 99 percent."
"America is a great nation because we are a united nation," Romney said. "Those who try to divide the nation, as you're trying to do here and our president is doing, are hurting this country seriously. ... America's right and you're wrong."
Meanwhile, a Reuters poll of roughly 17,000 people released Friday found more than half of those surveyed had mixed feelings about the movement. A spokeswoman for Ipsos, the global research firm that conducted the poll, blamed ambiguous messaging, saying many respondents were unsure of what exactly the demonstrators want.
"We want more victories," said Franzen, adding the group plans to stick to their strategy of only taking on battles they can win. "The time of waiting around for a leader to save us is over. We've got to take the fight on ourselves, and we're going to do it on our terms."
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