Some of the 99 percent march on Wells Fargo

A good sized crowd, maybe approaching 1000 people, marched from the OccupySF encampment in front of the Federal Reserve building at 101 Market to Wells Fargo's California Street headquarters Wednesday morning.


Banks are unpopular, but it takes some organizing to draw a good crowd for a march at that hour. Local community organizations and the more activist bits of the labor movement -- including Causa Justa/Just Cause, POWER, Young Workers United, the Chinese Progressive Association and Unite Here Local 2850, CNA, the teachers -- pulled this event together.


Mayoral candidate John Avalos represented the political class.


People took the street in the dim canyons of the financial district ...


... while a copter hovered above.


If you haven't been in one of these things, you might not know that folks can be both fighting mad and happy to be together while demonstrating. The experience of solidarity does that.


Solidarity is about knowing we're all in the 99 percent together.


At the Wells Fargo location, groups fanned out to all the entrances.


These protesters blocked a door in an alley. A cop warned them, asking them to move.


The bank wanted the entrance open, so police took a few away. They were cited and released.


These bank employees waiting for a door to be cleared tried to make light of their visitors, but do I see some anxiety? At that early hour, they are more likely to be part of the 99 percent who are getting screwed, but not everyone knows that.***Joan Walsh from Salon extracted some thoughtful observations about where the energy unleashed by the "Occupiers" might be going from Ann Pettifor who worked in the global debt forgiveness campaign, Jubilee 2000.

Movements are broad, collective mobilizations, often arising spontaneously in response to injustice. They are vital in giving voice to the voiceless.

Campaigns are organized, have institutional capacity and adopt specific goals and targets. If well-designed and thought through, campaigns can harness the energy and power of a movement to achieve specific goals.

Examples of great campaigns that harnessed movements against injustice, and achieved transformative change, include the movements to abolish slavery, to win the vote for women, to expand civil and political rights to African-Americans, and in this case, to “Drop the Debt.”