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Parris Hobbs Interview Transcript

Interview date: 04/13/2014

Interviewer: Kyle Pitzer (KP)

Interviewee: Parris Hobbs (PH)

Kyle Pitzer: Alright...so, it's April 13th, 2014. This is Kyle Pitzer, I'm here with Parris Hobbs.

Parris Hobbs: Hello

KP: Hello. Interview number 5 in the Occupy Dayton project, so I guess just to start off -- I don't really know that much about you, so can you just kind of give me your background?

PH: Yeah, sure. I am from the Dayton area. Went to West Carrolton High School, studied dance at Wright State. Left, was a professional dancer, came back, went to business school at UD and now I work as a banker.

KP: What made you want to get into banking?

PH: Actually I had a knee injury when I was dancing with St. Louis Ballet, so I moved back home and decided to go to business school. I just wanted to try something different, and I thought maybe I could run like arts companies. and you know a lot of the banks that recruit off campus, so I got a job offer and that was a pretty good one and decided to take it.

KP: So how long have you been in Dayton?

PH: Back in Dayton?

KP: Yeah.

PH: Since 2005.

KP: So what do you think of Dayton in general?

PH: Um, I love it. I think it's a great city. Of course, I'm from here, so I have a lot of ties to the area, but it's a great city. Lots of great people. Wonderful history, and plenty of things to do. There's no beach, but you know -- we got the pool I guess. [Laughs]

KP: Where do you live at right now?

PH: Right now I live with my partner in Kettering, so kind of by where the Greene area is. 2

KP: Yeah, yeah. What's Kettering like?

PH: Kettering is fine. I'm more of a city person, but he had already bought a house there, so when we met we moved in together. I mean, it's nice. Kettering is----they take good care of the area, the streets and things like that. So, I don't have any complaints.

KP: How would you say Kettering compares to the other parts of Dayton and the other neighborhoods?

PH: I think, I mean it's pretty comparable. If you're looking for a place that has good services in terms of cleaning the streets and things like that, and the taxes aren't outrageous -- then it's a good thing. It's definitely not as expensive as Oakwood or somewhere like, but you still get a pretty good area. So yeah, I like it.

KP: Mm, hmm. What about the... are you familiar with the rest of Dayton or any other neighborhoods like that?

PH: Yeah, well I grew up in Miami Township area, down in West Carrollton -- so I'm really familiar with that, and I bought a condo down there. So I have some property down there. It's in that, you know, that South Dayton area by the Dayton Mall is pretty nice. Um, but yeah I know Dayton like the back of my hand. I can get around. Downtown, I've worked downtown for a while. I work in Oakwood, so all pretty good areas.

KP: Mm hmm, so just to clarify, how old are you?

PH: I'm 40

KP: You're 40, and you've lived in Dayton for most of your life, moved away for a little bit, but-

PH: Yeah.

KP: -you've been back for fairly a while.

PH: Mhm, yep.

KP: Yeah, how would you say… how would you say Dayton has changed since you've lived here, since your childhood? Since you left and came back and everything?

PH: Uh, that's a good question. I spent most of my childhood in the south suburbs, so I wasn't really that familiar with anything besides like West Carrollton-Miamisburg-Kettering areas, but of course a lot of things have changed in terms of- GM leaving was a big thing for that area down there, so a lot of shops have closed up, and it can kind of look kind of scary over there. [Laughs] It's kind of like a ghost town. But, um... Yeah, I think they really try to do a lot with downtown which is nice, because it was kind of dying a little bit. There wasn't a whole lot going on right before I moved to St. Louis. For example, right where the St. Clair lofts are, down there 3

that was just an abandoned building. So I noticed that when I would come back and visit, and definitely they have done wonderful things with the downtown area with all the updated living and then the ballfield and stuff, so I think Dayton is making a comeback, kind of, from the 80's. So it's kind of exciting to watch.

KP: What do you mean making a comeback from the 80's? What was going on in the 80's?

PH: Well I think that… I think a lot of people, factories and things started leaving when outsourcing happened, and so Dayton was hit pretty hard like a lot of the other cities in the Midwest were. When manufacturing and things like that started moving to China. So it got there for a little that it started looking run-down, there weren't a lot of jobs, and I think then with the crisis and with like the meltdown in 2008 that like precipitated a lot of hard times for Dayton. But I think it's making a comeback in terms of, you know, there's a lot of energetic people, and jobs are starting to come back. They've got that company coming in down where the old GM plant used to be, which will bring a lot of good jobs, so...um...yeah.

KP: What about your time in St. Louis? How would you compare that to Dayton?

PH: To Dayton? They’re actually really kind of similar cities. Older cities based on manufacturing with probably a lot of the same challenges. St. Louis is a little bit bigger, but they face a lot of the same things that Dayton does; older neighborhoods, trying to get people to move into the city, because a lot of the people want to live out in the suburbs when they start having kids, so I think one thing with St. Louis, they were a little bit ahead of like trying to get young people to move back in downtown and make it fun to live in the city and have a cool music scene and stuff, but I am starting to see that a little bit in Dayton.

KP: Mm hmm-

PH: But, yeah, the time in St. Louis kind of reminded me a lot of Dayton, just like a bigger version. [Laughs]

KP: Mm hmm. Why'd you move back?

PH: I was leaving St. Louis Ballet. I was there for 4 years, and then I got a fellowship to go to Mercy Hurst College in Erie, Pennsylvania and I wanted to finish college, because I studied here at Wright State for 2 years- dance- and I wanted to go back and finish school. So, they were like, "We'll pay you if you come up here and dance and finish your arts degree" so that's what I did. I went to Erie, Pennsylvania and then from there I moved back to Dayton and went to U.D. for Business School.

KP: Mhm.

PH: Been back ever since. [Laughs]

KP: So, at what point did you become a banker?

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PH: Um, and I know this is going to sound funny because I was involved with Occupy Dayton, and I'm also a personal banker, but I'm not like a Wall Street banker. I'm a… I work at a local bank, and help people with their accounts and help people get their finances together, and stuff like that.

KP: Yeah.

PH: So it's not like the banker you think of that's on Wall Street, because people always were like, "You're a banker and you're with Occupy Dayton? What, isn't that kind of an oxymoron?" and I'm like, "Well, I don't really work on Wall Street". In my defense with that, I think there are a lot of things with the banking industry that need to change. I think there are probably a lot of people that work on Wall Street that think that, but unfortunately everything is controlled from the top. So, we don't get a lot of say at the local level of how things get to run. I worked in financial services, I've been working in financial services for about 9 years now. I started at GE Capital, and started in customer just helping people with their credit card accounts. So it just came naturally to me, and the jobs are available. There are a lot of bank jobs available, and they pay well. It just made sense for me to do that. I like working with people, so I'm on the front line -- I talk to people all day. I try to help them out with their finances. It just kind of stuck, and once you start down a road and get experience, it's just what you're labeled as, so now if I wanted to get out banking- I'd probably have to go back to school for something else. [Laughs]

KP: I was just curious, because you said, you mentioned the financial crisis earlier, and I was just kind of curious what working at- even if you're not a Wall Street banker, your perspective of seeing that financial crisis happen working in that industry.

PH: Yeah.

KP: What was that like?

PH: Well at the time, I was working… I didn't start working as a personal banker, at like a branch bank until like 2010, so that was well after that. At that time I worked for GE Capital, which is- they do credit card financing, so like if you have a Macy's credit card they do a lot of department store credit cards, and I was a supervisor in their call center. Seeing that happen, you definitely felt -- I was talking calls in the call center in Kettering, which- from people who had a credit card account. You definitely saw a lot of stress, people couldn't pay their bills. We saw credit card defaults go up, and of course companies weren't giving credit out- they were slashing credit lines, so we had to deal on the front lines with telling people that we just cut your credit line, because you're showing signs of financial stress. So a lot of people who maybe had $4,000 on their credit card would all of a sudden get letters that they have a $2,000 balance and we're taking their credit card to $2,000, which basically means they can't spend anymore. So there was a lot of crazy stuff going, and dealing with that on the front lines was pretty interesting to say the least. We took probably the brunt of the stuff. I took escalated calls from people which means people from customer service representatives would transfer calls to me that people were upset, so I definitely had to talk a lot of people down off the ledge. [Laughs]

KP: What was your overall opinion of the financial crisis when that was happening? 5

PH: I think, you know, nobody really knew what was really going on at the time, but obviously the way our financial system works isn't healthy. Everything is just so much about profit that people just got overzealous and tried to… they just go after money. Money- and not even seeing that people can't pay things back. That coupled with the fact that Americans just have to keep borrowing, because you're not making enough money because wages don't rise. So you just go into major debt, and it created this huge bubble that finally burst. I think if they raised the wages, and people made what they should actually make -- you wouldn't see so much debt for school, housing, and all of that. So it's just a symptom of the way our whole not only financial, but our economic system works, it's based on a few people making a lot of money, while everyone else is struggling. A system like that isn't going to work well. Eventually it's going to crash down. [Laughs]

KP: Yeah. When do you think the tipping point for the financial crisis was- or I guess that kind of was the tipping point- but when did those issues really start to manifest?

PH: Um, I think you saw signs- I mean, you've always seen signs of that- you had probably back in the Reagan era when they started deregulating all the trades on Wall Street. You started seeing a lot of speculation and risky trades and that's when you saw the dot-com bubble in the late 90's, and that kind of burst. So I mean, even then you saw some things going on. Then, probably in 2005-2006, I've seen interviews and things where people behind the scenes knew there was a bubble, and that something was going to end up bursting. That there were risky trades being made based on mortgages. I guess they call them toxic assets. People's retirements were in jeopardy, and things like that, but nobody really said anything until the end. [Laughs] Until it all started crashing down, and that was in the fall of 2008, when everyone became aware of… I think it was when Lehman Brothers collapsed- one of the big ones- and nobody really even knew about it outside of the insiders. That was kind of the catalyst. When they collapsed, everything else just kind of fell apart.

KP: Would you say you feel a strong connection to community?

PH: To the community?

KP: Yeah, or not...however you define community.

PH: Yeah, I feel a strong connection to the Dayton area in general, just being from here, and growing up here and then coming back. The Dayton area has given me a lot in terms of opportunities in life, so I definitely feel connected to the community and feel like I want to give back. Plus, we’re all community- the human race, so I think you have to feel connected to that, because if you're disconnected from that then that's when you see stupid things happen, when people are only thinking about themselves.

KP: Would you describe yourself as an activist?

PH: Hm. I think other people might. I… I am. It's such a loaded term. I… people use it negatively, like "they're an activist, you gotta watch for them". It like conjures images of 6

somebody that's trying to disrupt things, which I guess you kind of are when you're in that role, but I guess I just prefer the term… I'm somebody who's engaged, who when things are wrong wants to speak up about it, and do what I can to affect change for the greater good. So people label that an activist. I never really have thought of myself as that. I’m just engaged in different movements that I'm passionate about.

KP: What are some of those movements that you're engaged with?

PH: Primarily, you know, I've had some really good professors in college who've tried to people engaged in things and that really sparked me to get involved in causes that I cared about. Before the economic crisis, and becoming involved with Occupy Wall Street, I've done a lot of work for the gay community, so for LGBT rights, the movement for marriage equality. So a lot of volunteer work, a lot writing letters to the editor, speaking out, things like that, leading rallies. So I had a lot of experience with that. Since Occupy came along I was involved with that pretty much for 2 years. I still, I guess, get involved whenever something is going on somewhere. [Laughs] Whether it’s a Walmart strike or something, I try to stay involved. [Laughs]

KP: Well, let's talk about Occupy then. What is Occupy?

PH: That is a movement of people who are… who've come together to change the economic system, I think.

KP: When did you first become aware of it?

PH: It was in September of 2011 when I saw it, I think through social media first, but that's when the activists, or the people who were involved with Occupy Wall Street had been planning- I guess all summer- to go down, and there was a call by Adbusters- which is a Canadian anti- consumerism organization, for people to go down and just sleep- on Wall Street- as a protest for 2 months, to draw attention to the fact that there's so much money in our politics. There original call was to demand that President Obama call together a commission to get the money out of politics and how corrupt our system is. I guess they had been planning it all summer. I became aware of it when the protests started building and it started getting in the media. I think the Brooklyn Bridge protests where the police kettled thousands of people that were marching in, and wouldn't let them leave. I think that kind of sparked- it was really the turning point of that movement; that’s when everyone started getting the camps nationwide and saying, "I'm inspired by this and want to stand in solidarity with you" and that certainly is what happened in Dayton. When I saw that, I started just getting energized. All of these classes and things I had learned about in college were all of a sudden coming to life like there was a movement that was going to stand up to this economic injustice, and the fact that you have so much wealth in the hands of such a few amount of people. I was certainly inspired by it. As soon as I saw that, I created the Occupy Dayton Facebook page, just to get people locally, to have them be able to be connected to that somehow, and say "hey, over here in Dayton we're supporting you guys" and it just took off. I was kind of like, a little taken aback because I would come home from work and would look at the page and there was just so many people liking it, and so to be honest, it was a little overwhelming, I was just trying to keep up with going from just over a few hundred likes, then I think it had in a month or two gone up to like thousands and thousands, and people are like, 7

"When are we going to meet?" and it just kind of took off. There was just so much energy that we were like scrambling to figure it out, and I was like "Well, I guess we should probably have a rally". It just kind of snowballed after that. Christina, who was involved in the movement from the beginning, she was messaging… we started talking on Facebook and everybody was like, "let's meet this Saturday" and we had the first rally, and I think that like October 2nd or it was like one of the first Saturdays in October of 2011, and hundreds of people showed up. We were like, “here we are.” [Laughs] That's really how Occupy Dayton started, and I think that happened similarly across the country, and even the world. Like, I think that Brooklyn Bridge protest and seeing it all over the news really inspired people to like stand up, when they started learning about what was happening.

KP: So when you first made that first Facebook page, and then all of a sudden it blew. How did you handle that?

PH: Um, I… there were just a lot of questions. People were posting things on the wall, like "Who's running this page?" "What's going on?" and "This page isn't set up right!" It was just a lot, especially after you work all day, I was just kind of a little overwhelmed. So I asked Christina, because she was really active on the page in terms of saying like, "Let me help you do this", so I made her admin on the page and we were the first two who tried to manage the page. She helped, and I think I made a few other admins, and once I did that, that helped. There was one girl who just stayed home, she wasn't really going to the protests as much so she would stay home and answer questions on the page and create events. I just got more people involved, because I knew I wouldn't be able to do it, and I didn't really want to sit at home looking at Facebook all day [laughs].

KP: Yeah. Did you see yourself… would you say you took a very active role in propelling all of this forward?

PH: I don't really think it was me, because it was really a nationwide movement-

KP: Yeah-

PH: -really a worldwide movement, so it wasn't really any one person. I certainly took the effort to create the first page, but then someone else had created a page, too, and there were two in the beginning, and we were just like, "Hey!" Ours just happened to have more likes because we started earlier, so we talked to the other girl, “Just take yours down and tell your fans to come over to ours”, instead of having two Occupy pages. So there were hundreds of people locally that were part of this, so I don't think- I certainly helped and put my effort into it, but it was much more than that.

KP: I'm just curious how it went from a Facebook page, to an actual rally. What was the process?

PH: Well, I think people were just ready. They were actually- before the page really took off and we said we want to have an official first rally, Sean Cassman and Elder Vernellia Randall, they're UD Professors and they were excited about it, so they went down to Courthouse Square the weekend before anyone else had a planned rally, and they were just like, "We just want to be out 8

here". I think there was just that energy just because the movement had sparked something, and people were just so excited about it, and people just wanted to be out in public squares and just support standing in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street. So I think they went down there with some of their family, and that's like the official first rally. It was like Sean and Vernellia, and maybe 5 people. I guess the way it went from the Facebook page to that, it was like, we're talking on there and everybody said they wanted to do a rally, we wanted to get out in the streets. So we said, "Let's pick a date" and we picked an official date and created an event. I don't know if we put something in the newspaper at that point, or did a press release, but we certainly… I think we did a press release and everything, and got it out in the media, plus the people that were on the Facebook page, and so we just met down there the next week. That first rally was kind of impromptu. Looking back now, and knowing what I know about the movement we could've done a lot better job, but people just wanted to get out there. I think I came out… I had to work that day and I came off, and Christina was there and we were like- everyone was out on the road protesting, and the police had actually given a ticket to some girl who was in the street, and people were just out there and the media was out there. There was just a lot of energy, and they wanted to like talk and plan things, so all of a sudden I was like, "Well I guess I'll do it." [Laughs] So, Christine and I like pulled up on the stage at Courthouse Square and just kind of started talking and asking people, like "What do you wanna do? What do want this to be about?" and started planning for the next phase. I think we asked the crowd was like, "Do you guys just want to meet here and do rallies and support it, or do you actually want to have a camp, like, here in Dayton, and where would that be?" So that was really what the first rally after, or really what the first meeting I guess they're called general assemblies of Occupy Dayton was about, and people were like, "Yeah, let's camp out". So, we decided to do a camp as well.

KP: What did you think about that idea, forming a camp?

PH: I don't think I knew what I was getting into [Laughs] but I thought it was, you know, I thought it was a good idea. I was for it. I just had so much passion for the movement, I really felt like at the time I was like, this is a world-changing event, like, we need to do whatever we can. I think there were doubts, like I had some other adults after that first meeting that were like, "I don't know about an actual camp, I'm not gonna sleep on the streets", but we decided to do it and we started asking around after that rally who's going to do it, and of course some people say they are and then they don't and they were like, "Well, there's a small group of us that are actually going to stay the night tonight, and we'll do it in Courthouse Square". So I actually left and went home and had dinner, and then came back around 9 o'clock and there was probably- of course the crowd was gone and there was a group of like, 15 of us, and it was like -- well...let's do it. So we just kind of stayed out there all night. I was posting to the Facebook page, like "Hey, we're down here!" and it was kind of funny because people just started bringing us food, we'd be like, "Oh, it's 11 o'clock we haven't had dinner, and all of a sudden 5 pizzas would show up from different people, so it was kind of humbling and amazing to see that there people watching the page and they were like, "Keep it up, you're doing an amazing job for staying out here". Looking back, I guess it's like- we're not actually on Wall Street, it's kind of silly for us to be sleeping out here, but we just really felt like we wanted to be standing in solidarity with them. We stayed out there the first night, then I had to go home and do Sunday things. So I left, and some other people came and took over and we just started to- it was kind of a rocky start. We were just like, I would post on the page, like, we need to get more people down because there were people that just 9 needed to leave, and if you guys want to continue this camp, come on down. You know, the first few days, people would just kind of straggle down, stay a few hours, and leave. We would try to make sure there was always somebody down there. And signs- meanwhile, signs, and covers, and candles are starting to collect on the steps of Courthouse Square. Really, that first week it just took off. There were a group of kids- Emsenn was one of them, or, um… I can't remember his name-

KP: Morgan-

PH: Morgan was one of them that came down and they actually were like, "We're going to stay here", and they actually started living there, which I couldn't do and a lot of the other adults couldn't do because we work, and I have a house to take care of. So they were like…and we fell into this role of supporting them and bringing food down and making sure they were taken care of. Probably by the end of that first week, there were probably about 15 -16 campers actually living there and protesting all day. I would go down after work every day, and stay for a few hours, and I know with some of the adults we had meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Those first few weeks we would have marches downtown, and people would meet and we would march through the streets during lunch rush-hour. Yeah, I mean, it was pretty cool. The camp worked, we made it work, but there was definitely a lot of stress with it, especially towards the end when the city was like, "You guys have to leave" and people were like, "We need to fold this up now". Then there was another camp group of people who were like, "No, we're not leaving", and I think that's when it really started getting to where it started stressing people out, like "I'm not going to deal with this". That was happening nationwide. The police, city officials, they were trying to force people out after the first few weeks, it was like, "Okay, you made your point, you're protesting. Now it's time to go". The same thing was happening here. There were two different camps of people: the ones that were like, "Let’s just move this" and then there were- especially a lot of the kids that were staying, and I don't want to be derogatory and be like "kids", but the younger people that were living at the camp, they were like, "We're absolutely not leaving". I tried to just support them. I was like, "You guys are the ones down here. I can't stay down here. If you want to stay down here I'll support you”, so, I tried to make sure- I was running the bank account, so I tried to make sure that I would stop by every day after work and make sure they had dinner and things like that. I think the camp kind of limped on until mid-December? Then we were finally like, okay. A lot of… Emsenn had left, a lot of the people that had been living down there had left, and there was only like 4 or 5 people- some of them homeless- that we needed to get into shelters and we were just like, "It's time." I think we just kind of disbanded like December 9th, or something like that.

KP: Mm hmm. Why did you guys choose to go to Dave Hall Plaza, initially?

PH: Oh, my gosh! That was another huge, stressful thing. They just... the city came and they have this huge festival of the lighting of the tree around Thanksgiving, and it's a huge thing for Dayton, and it is a good thing, and they feed kids and… or kids get to watch the parade and all this. They asked Occupy Dayton, "Can you move your camp, and we'll give you a small space on the square.” That kind of was a turning point for the Occupy Dayton movement, because a lot of us… a lot of people felt like this is a good thing for the community, and we should work with it. It’s like they're giving kids Christmas. But then there were some other people who just said, "No, 10

we're not moving for anybody. We're not doing this". We had the president of the Downtown Dayton Partnership come to one of our meetings, and that didn’t really go that well [laughs]. So I think at that point we just- there were a lot of people that were like, "No, we're not moving". We lost a lot of supporters at that point because they were like, "I can't support this", and we had probably a few people walk away, and that was probably about a week, and the news media was there, “What's Occupy Dayton going to do?” Sean, Cassman, and the Occupy Dayton education working group came up with a proposal that we will move the camp- and we thought this will be a really great way to effect change- if you halt all foreclosures in the Dayton area. So basically demanding that you stop kicking people out of their homes, let them get caught up on their mortgage payments, then we will move the camp. That actually gained steam and we got some media attention on that, but then it came down to like the wire, we had to be moved by a certain day and some people in the camp just felt like, "We can't put those staying down here in jeopardy of being arrested". So it was decided to back off the foreclosure demand and move the camp, so we all got together and moved down to Dave Hall Plaza and got out of the way for the festival. I think in the end we felt like it really wasn't worth risking. It's not like we had a hundred people sleeping down there in New York, we had like, at that point, 10 people sleeping down there? It really wasn't fair to ask them to risk arrest and stuff for the rest of the people who were sleeping comfortably at home. We asked them what they wanted to do, and they were like, "We don't really want to get arrested". So that's when we moved the camp to Dave Hall Plaza, all 5 people that showed up to move the camp. [Laughs]

KP: Describe what those first few rallies were like. What did they feel like?

PH: Those were amazing! Because I think there was just so much energy, and people had... the Occupy Movement really tapped into a feeling that was there and a voice that wasn't being heard. Even since the crisis, all every one ever talked about was the fact that, "How are the banks doing?" or "How are the companies doing?" Nobody was really talking about people and how just the average person is really doing, and why we were in this situation to begin with, and how corporations and companies were all about the bottom line, and who is really looking out for the people? I think that really tapped… when that voice came out, and it was like, "We are here for the people. We're tired of this. We're tired of bailing out companies that are acting irresponsibly with our tax dollars, when you should be giving the money back to us to be helping us." I think there was just a lot resentment and anger in the country, and when that happened and Occupy movement started, people just burst out into the streets, so there was just tons of energy. People just angry and so happy to be expressing themselves, so those first few rallies- I mean it sounds really cliché and like nerdy- but I would like get emotional about it, just because it was so inspiring to see so many people out and being happy and joyful that this was going on, and hugging each other and telling each other- just telling their stories about, "I'm struggling, I have financial problems, it's not fair what's going on in the country." So there was just a lot of energy and passion those first few weeks, and those probably first 7-8 rallies, and we got really good turnout and media coverage. Our rallies had a couple hundred people- for the first few rallies and our assemblies- so those were really amazing and it just felt like you were doing something good.

KP: Are there any stories that strike you from that time period?

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PH: Like individual people’s stories?

KP: Just interesting stories that stand out to you.

PH: Hmm... I mean, the whole thing… [Laughs]

KP: Yeah…

PH: Just, I don't know...like, I can't think of anything in particular. Like, people’s stories, I heard so many of them. We had some people come down to the camp after we set up, we kind of set up these three shelters, and one was a library, one was where people slept, and one was a third one- I can't even remember what that was, it was like a medical tent. I think that was a pretty cool thing, like on Saturday night we had some techno music on and people were dancing in the street and protesting. [Laughs] Then you would have like, random passers-by, like some guys who had been out in the Oregon came by and were watching us, and they were kinda like, "Oh this is left- wing crap". So there were a lot things like that, where you think they are passers-by and nay- sayers, but they would at least stop by and listen to what we had to say. There were a couple times where, you know, you would get people out there arguing back and forth, but there really wasn't a whole lot of that. There were great conversations, so I mean there were tons of stories of people coming by.

KP: What do you think the rest of the community of Dayton thought of this?

PH: Ach! Well, it runs the gamut. I think when it first came out, it was like the rest of the country. Like, most people supported the ideas and probably still do. You know, they don't want… most people probably fall somewhere in the middle, where they don't really mind corporations, but they don't want them to have as much power as they do and that you really need to help the average person. So I think in general, most people in Dayton supported it. They didn't support when we started fighting with the city, I think people started getting mad. They were like, "Just move!" You know? That's when we started losing a little bit of support, is when I think people were getting annoyed and felt like we should wrap it up. The police department and fire department really supported us at first, because they were fighting that anti-union bill at the same time. So they were like, "Oh cool! They're in the streets about it!" After we won that and that bill, the vote happened where people said, "No, we're not going to bust unions", we started kind of… I feel like they had not really used the movement, but they were kind of like, "Okay, let's wrap this up. We've had some victories". So I think we did start to… I think towards the end and around the holidays, people were like, "It's time to have the holidays and not protesting in the streets". So, people were backing off, and then we always had, probably, the group of people that were maybe to the right-wing and never… they thought we were socialist and communists, “You're never going to do anything!” We had a small group of them that would drive by and be like, "Commies!" or you know, flip us off, but you're not gonna do anything about people like that. For the most part, I think people were happy it happened and then were like, "Let's wrap this up." That's kind of the feeling I got.

KP: Were there any groups that you think- any groups in particular that latched on to the Occupy Movement? 12

PH: MoveOn.org. They do a lot. It's a liberal group, but they really align with a lot of Democratic Party issues. Occupy Wall Street, and Dayton in particular -- there were a lot of independents that really didn't like the Democratic or the Republican Party. So they were just like kind of skeptical about outside groups that came in. MoveOn.org really wanted to help out and they really wanted to have some joint rallies in the beginning, and they would come down to the camp and put out their own calling for their own supporters to come down. I was always open to it, I support MoveOn and I've worked with them before. So they were kind of instrumental with doing some things in the beginning. Then, Anonymous, which is like a mass group of people? [Laughs] I'm not really a supporter or not. I'm just not really familiar with them, but they, I guess, kind of teamed up with Occupy Wall Street in the beginning, so you would see a lot of their supporters at the rallies. So I think Anonymous and Occupy Wall Street did a bunch of things in the beginning.

KP: Was there any level of interaction between Occupy Dayton and any other Occupy encampments?

PH: We did. We had somebody from Occupy St. Louis came, oddly enough, because I had lived there but I didn't know this person, it wasn't because of me. He came, he just happened to be in town. He was like, a business man and was here doing some work, and he came down to the camp and he kind of connected with us and said, "We want to do this thing called Occupy Midwest and bring us all together" -- all the cities in the Midwest. So he connected with us, and they created an Occupy the Midwest page, and I was an admin on that for a while. I didn't go, but they ended up later in the summer of 2012 having an Occupy the Midwest Conference in St. Louis. They tried to really get us together, and they were successful. I don't really know if anybody from Occupy Dayton went. People would go back and forth to Occupy Cincinnati, we had some people from Cincinnati come up. Some of our campers went to Occupy Columbus. So there were certain individual campers who would go around, and we had people who were hiking across camps, like, that was just the thing to do. So we would get people from like- I can't even remember where. There was Occupy Louisville, and he was like, "Oh, I just hitchhiked up here, and I'm just going to different camps. I was just at Occupy Cincinnati". So people were going at that time, and we had some kids from Occupy Chicago come down. I think that it just started to become the thing to do, to like hike or go from camp-to-camp. So we had a lot of people straggle in and then leave- stay a few days, eat, and then leave, and go on to their next thing. So there was a lot of that going on. Then, Occupy Cincinnati was going to try to have an Occupy National Event where we get representatives and send them to Congress. It never really came to fruition. I think they did have a National Occupy meeting in Philadelphia where all the groups met, but... There was a lot of collaboration. A lot of connections being made for sure.

KP: So what was your level of… with Occupy Dayton over the lifespan of when it was active?

PH: In the beginning I was really energetic and instrumental in helping out the other people just get it moving, and to get the story in the media, I helped with press-releases, and tried to help with skills I have to lend those to the movement. I did a lot of things like that, a lot of television interviews, especially in the fall. After the camp left, there were people who were still interested and we moved into a church on 3rd street- of a supporter. She had a church and was like, "Just 13 move everything here". There was still a core group of maybe like 20 of us, Dana, Jeff Piper, the ones that were really active adults in it. We still wanted to continue it. So we still had our weekly meetings, probably 20 to 30 of us, and we did that from Christmas time in December all the way until May. We had some rallies and events, and coordinated with other Occupy Groups; Occupy Portland in Oregon had a call to action called Shut Down the Corporations in February and we all worked together to go out on the streets on the same day. We did a May Day thing… so we tried to keep it going with Occupy. That summer, I think I kind of had to back out, I just had too much going on with work, and I'm on a couple other boards, so I kind of bowed out at that time and just said, "Hey, we'll continue to support", but I think June of 2012 is when I stopped being as active. They kept going. They did some Wal Mart stuff in the fall when people were protesting Wal Mart. My time was probably from that fall till the summer of 2012.

KP: Would you say that the strategies and tactics of Occupy Dayton- not just Occupy Dayton, but Occupy in general -- would you say they were effective or detrimental?

PH: That's a good question. I think some were effective, and some were detrimental [Laughs]. That’s a safe answer, but it's probably the truth. The whole going out in the streets- it was genius, and Occupying Wall Street, that's a great tactic to get attention. It's edgy, no one had done that before, in a long time. There had been occupations before in history, I can't tell you what they are right now, but I've read… when they were talking about Occupy Wall Street, somebody did a piece about a piece about this tactic and how its been used before. It's a wonderful attention getter and to get your message out. It's edgy, and it's not something you see every day. You see protests, but you don't see people actually caring so much about something that they're going to go sleep on the streets with crappy weather with rats. So it was like, kind of out there and I think that was very effective. Some of the things that were ineffective I think- and this is my personal opinion, because there is mixed opinion on this- when it started getting down to the city saying, "You need to live" and doing things like that, there were… I think it turned off a lot of people to see, "Why don't you just leave? Be cooperative." And at the same time, the corporate media twisted that and made it look... I don't know. Made it look like there were just people who were being obstinate, instead of covering why they were doing it. I guess some people would say it was detrimental to fight back as much as we did, and as long as we did, but I don't really put a judgment out on that, on my thoughts, because I don't really know. It's all so controversial, I think within the movement people are like… when you're doing stuff like shutting down traffic and doing things where you like obstruct the sidewalk or stuff like that. I guess it's called Civil Disobedience. It's always controversial. Sometimes it works, sometimes they don't. Some people are like, "I'm just an average everyday person and you're affecting me trying to go work". So it probably does piss some people off, and they're like, "This is a bad tactic". I guess it depends on where it is and what you are trying to do. But I personally think that the whole sleeping in the streets and the encampments were ingenious.

KP: What about Occupy Dayton itself?

PH: [Long silence] Well, you know, the tactic of getting out there in Courthouse Square and getting the word out and all those protests, you know, we captured the attention of Dayton for a good month or so, and probably got some energy and got the message out there. We had lawyers who worked downtown, who probably never thought about it before and maybe they were 14

Republican, maybe they were Independent, maybe they were Democrat, but they would just say, "I hear what you're saying" and we would have great conversations. So people I think got educated, so what we did worked. Some things that didn't work. Our processes were not there with trying… we started fighting amongst ourselves about whether to move the camp or not, and so I think some things that failed- and probably nationwide with all Occupy's were- I think people just needed to come together more and make decisions to support each other. It got a little contentious and people were getting stressed out. So if I said we did anything wrong, I think it would be taking a deep breath and maybe being like, "So, let's compromise. We're all in this together, you say you want to move, others don't. Maybe we move halfway down the street". Something, I don't know [Laughs]. I just think that's where it started to come apart was when the infighting started.

KP: Yeah. Yeah. I was going to ask you if you could’ve done this all over again, what would you have done different?

PH: Um, I would not have...you know, I would've known more and studied more before the first rally, because that was really just pulled out of thin air. You know, we didn't know what we were doing. So I would've studied more of the Occupy Wall Street website. We did later on, after I got educated about some of their Call to Actions, we read some pretty cool inspirational messages. That's one thing. Another thing, is I would've let a lot more things roll off my back. I think when you're in a really stressful situation and you have people saying, "You guys need to move the camp!" and "No we don’t!" There were just people all the time, it started to just get kind of contentious in November. I think I probably would've let things roll off of my back more, and not… I got into some pretty heated arguments with people. I would've just been like, "Whatever". [Laughs]

KP: Yeah, yeah. So at what point did... at what point did you start to become disengaged with Occupy Dayton?

PH: That was in the spring, and again I think that was one of the things I would've changed. It was probably time for me to go, I just had a lot of other things in my life I had been neglecting. That takes a lot of energy to try to keep engaged in a movement, and work all day, then go to meetings and try to brainstorm, and then you're trying to take care of your own life. So i think it was probably time for me to go, so that's when I kind of just... I still support it, I still do. I'm still in touch with everybody and we still talk, especially online. We have a pretty active Occupy Dayton Education Group where we share articles, and we're constantly brainstorming. Some people still meet. We had- we have rallies, but not as much. We had one for the year anniversary, we had one for the solidarity of No Bombing Syria, so I think what it left was a network of community activism. People now that if there's a cause that comes up, like we're getting ready to go to war, we all are connected now, so we can just say, "Hey, let's have a rally". So it's left a network in place that's pretty cool. I think for me, and I think probably a lot of people, it started to lose a little bit of steam towards that spring, and for me I just had to disengage to focus on other areas of my life really.

KP: Do you think- when did it lose.... when did Occupy Dayton kind of just fall apart, or did it fall apart? 15

PH: I don't think it really has, some people might say that. I know people have different feelings about it. I try, you know, now that I have been away from it, I don't really have any strong feelings one way or the other in terms of it fell apart or if it was somebody’s fault that it did. There was some finger pointing and things going on that I think just got nasty and silly. I think they continued to go on and do rallies throughout probably 2013 and it just started losing steam, probably nationwide. There wasn't really a need to meet every week. You know, we weren’t really out in the streets as much anymore, people were focusing on other things in their lives and I think when Gabriela sold the church last year- that was our meeting place- that was kind of like… I think I heard people say, "Occupy Dayton is dead!" I don't really think it is, I think that energy will live on. We still have Occupy Dayton Education Group- the page is still active- although I am not admin on there anymore, I think a few other people are. So we're still there, it just isn't as intense. That doesn't mean it won't be that, in the future. It's just kind of in a dormant phase, I think.

KP: How do you think Occupy Dayton fits into the greater context of the rest of the protests that are happening around the country?

PH: The rest of the Occupy protests?

KP: Mm hmm-

PH: We were definitely just a piece of the puzzle. We were just supporting what was going on locally. Anytime I've been involved in anything, that's what you want to try to do, is if there is something nationally going on that you know people are passionate about locally, you want to pull that together and give everyone an avenue to express that locally without having to drive to Columbus or Cincinnati, where people I think see those as bigger cities where protests might go on. There is an active community of people in Dayton, so we fit in by just adding a little microphone to this region, you know, of the cacophony of voices that are going on nationwide.

KP: How do you think people are going to remember Occupy?

PH: I think they will see it as a turning point. I think it did- although there is another point where there's some contention- but I think there's some people who say, "Oh, it didn't do anything." I think what it did successfully was change the conversation, and it brought awareness. You see things in the media now- mainstream media- about economic inequality. I think there was a study about before Occupy Wall Street how many times you would hear things like "economic inequality" in the news media and it was like none, very little. Then after the movement there was like a chart, and it's all over the place. So, it did change the conversation, and I think people will look back at and see it as a part of something like the Labor Movement of the early 1900's when things changed. I think it will bring about changes. Maybe not overnight, but it already is when you have the president talking about economic equality and saying it's the number one issue facing us, in his State of the Union speech last year. That's huge! I don't think that would have happened without Occupy Wall Street. The Pope coming out and saying capitalism is evil -- I think these are things that people always thought, but nobody was… you would be labeled a communist if you said it, because of our history. I think it allowed people to talk about it, and 16

now we do openly. So it was an important movement, and I think people will look back and see that.

KP: What about you as a person, what impact did it have on you?

PH: I learned a lot from the movement, and just all the wonderful people that I connected with. I went through a transformation myself, maybe, about some of the shallow parts of myself- that we are all brought up in the same culture, where we are taught that you need to get a Mercedes and a nice car. We're very materialistic, and I fall into that category for sure, just being a human and growing up in the United States. I had to go through a transformation where I had to shed some of those layers and get down to what really matters, and that's making sure that people can eat, and get educated. It really grounded me in general, and I got connected with more people and really defined for myself what is important in life.

KP: So what were your… what were the initial expectations that you guys had going into starting this camp, and then how did they change later?

PH: The initial expectations I think were none. [Laughs] I didn't have any. I think, like, the expectations were to just get a group of people out there and get the message out, especially to people who might not be thinking about this during the day- the people at work, the people that work downtown. There is something like 40,000 people that work in the downtown Dayton area, and I think we just wanted to… the expectation was to get the message out. I probably, personally- I'm a passionate person, and I threw myself 100 percent, 110 percent into this. So I think I actually expected there to be like, a revolution. I thought we were going to change everything overnight, they were going to ban corporate money in politics. I thought like, that's the way it really felt when you were involved in it. You really felt like there was going to be some huge revolution and it was just going to change overnight. So I think there were probably some people who thought that, and were let down when it didn't happen, they were like, "Nothing even changed". When you look back maybe 5 years, it did change things. People, I think, were expecting drastic change right away, and that didn't really happen. So I think probably some people expected that out of the camp. I think I probably expected that the whole city of Dayton was gonna be like, "We're with you, and we're gonna come down". So I probably got a little frustrated, especially after the first few weeks of rallies, people were like, "Alright, I'm done. I've had my voice heard". I felt like- I think in the back of my mind I was expecting more people to come down and be like, "We really need to change things. Let’s sleep in the streets, let’s protest!", and I thought it was going to be this huge thing. So it didn't really get to the level that I thought it would. At that point it became more of like, "Eh, I don't think we can do this to the level that we wanted to.” We probably got the message out there, and I sort of came to terms with that. But...yeah.

KP: Can you describe what a rally was like? Going to one?

PH: Um...they were fun. I had never… I'd been to rallies before, I probably starting getting politically active, and active in rallies and stuff in 2004 with the whole re-election of George Bush, that I did not want to happen. So I went to a lot of Anti-Bush rallies. These were different than those. There wasn't really as much anger at the Occupy ones, as there was a sense of hope 17

and people just happy to be out, happy that all these people are out, just couldn't believe it was happening. I mean, you would just see people post things like, "I can't believe this is happening in Dayton", and “Look at all these beautiful people.” There was a sense of exuberance. It was like being at like a big party. You'd be out in Courthouse Square- and we had a really nice October that year, so it would be days like today where it's beautiful out, so people are just out there in the sun, and eating lunch, talking, so it was kind of like an outside party, really.

KP: I've always kind of wondered this myself, if they would've planned Occupy to happen in like April, do you think it would have been different?

PH: Probably. I think they initially planned it, and never really happened the way it was planned, and people kind of lost why it was planned, but it was planned to happen from September 17 to November 17. It was just a 60 day period to get the message out, and then when people got down there it became, "Let's stay forever and overthrow the world", but it really was initially just set for those 60 days, which the weather is still kind of- in November you can do that. If it had happened in April, I think they probably would've done the same thing. 60 days seems to be good window. They just said they're trying to do it again, Occupy Wall Street came out with a call to action. They said from April 7th through July 7th, so that's another 2 months? Is that 2 months? 3 month window. They're like, "Let's just have a call to action". I don't know how it's going, because there's not a lot of energy for it locally, quite honestly. People are just… I asked a few people, "Do you want to do a rally?" Like, at least kick it off and be like, "Woo!” I just think we really didn't get a lot of steam on that. So if they had done it summer? Ah, I don't know. I think it might have gone on a little bit longer, maybe into August, but it still would've been busted up. I mean, the police weren't going to let people just keep staying out there. So, eventually I think the same thing would have happened. They would have just been less cold than they were. [Laughs]

KP: How did you feel when you saw all these other Occupy encampments come together and develop, then get busted up?

PH: The only ones I really saw were the big ones that everyone saw, where there was violence- Occupy Oakland, and Wall Street. Like me personally, my head was in the game and I was involved in it, so I would get angry about it, just like everybody else that was involved in the movement. Like, how can you come down and bust up these people, who are just so fed up? They're just saying you have to change it, and you have all these major corporations doing these horrible things to people, and yet you're going to come after the people in the streets who are saying to change that. It really just made me realize how corrupt our system is. It's like, you can have institutionalized corruption going on, and people being kicked out in the street, and just the horrible… the way our economic system is so cold and callous, you can have that, that's legal, that's fair, but if you stand up against that out in the streets, we are gonna come and get you. You know, you can make your voice heard a little bit, but you gotta go eventually. So, to see them cracking down on people who are just trying to change the world, and make it better, I think I got… you know, I just got pissed off like everybody else. It made me more energized to change it. I was like, "You should not be arresting us, you should be arresting Wall Street executives who have robbed people of their pensions and things like that. That's the way that I felt about it.

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KP: We've hinted about the role of social media, but without social media do you think something like Occupy can happen?

PH: I think probably not to the extent that it did. I think the advent of social media and Facebook, even though people hate it, and it’s kind of become like corporate now, and it's like you just want to get off of it, without that- it does what Mark Zuckerburg wanted to do, which is connect people. You can use that for good or bad, but I think people hated Facebook at the Occupy Dayton movement. They would be like, "I hate it!" Especially… I don't want to pigeonhole people, but older generations, they don't understand it. I think when you grow up now, you are just like born with a tablet in your hand. So people were frustrated that we had to use it, but it really was the main organizing tool. They came up with an Occupy Dayton website, and they were like, "Let's use that! I hate Facebook! Let's get off of it. Let's organize on these threads over here." But it never really just took off. So, it was like a necessary evil. It was like coffee or something. You're addicted to it, and you might want to quit, but you have to use it. [Both laugh] So, I think without social media, probably not to the extent that it did. It just really facilitated connecting with people. You could be in your home, and just be on Facebook and be like, "I'm gonna see if there is an Occupy Dayton. Oh there is! When's the rally?" And you wouldn't have been able to do that before. So it definitely facilitated, and not only that, but like the Egyptian protest, they said a lot of that was done- a lot of protests being organized nowadays are being done through social media. So I think it's a game changer.

KP: What about the… what role do you think the mainstream media had in Occupy?

PH: Um, well, they were part of the problem. Our mainstream media is not, you know, they're just a megaphone for corporate agendas. I say that, working for a corporation, and I probably won't have a job next week. No, but [laughs] I think that they really weren't… they kind of tried to get the message out and talk about what people… why are you down here, but they really are just sensationalists, they just want to get to the next ad. They're all about getting ad revenue. So you have to get the best ratings by being sensationalized, so instead of doing investigative journalism about why people are down, or a great story on corruption on Wall Street and really what’s wrong with our society, they focused on the violence, the campers, the sex at the camps, anything that's like scandal so they could ratings. So I think they really were- maybe not all, but some- they do what corporate media does. They just gossiped. I don't think… if anything, they got people talking about it, but they didn't do a really good job of educating people about economic inequality and stuff. I see a little bit more of that now, maybe on some more liberal news like MSNBC, but they really were a mess. People were really frustrated with the corporate media during that.

KP: Yeah. Something you said a little earlier made me think. Was there like a big generational rift within Occupy? Were most of the people young or was it like an equal mix?

PH: They tried to portray that on the media, they'd be like, "Oh this is just a bunch of young kids down there", as if young kids aren't smarter than half the people that are older, as if age makes you stupid or something. They did try to portray the camps as that, but I think somebody did a study or survey, and the average age was actually like, in the late 30's or something. There was all different kinds of people. We would get tons of retirees, because you have more time. So 19

people would come down during the day. There were tons of people who work- like me, nurses, um... there were young people at the camp every day, college students. So it really ran the gamut. There really wasn't I don't think a generational shift at all, or split.

KP: So do you feel like Occupy Dayton was a success or failure? What were your feelings going away from it?

PH: It was definitely a huge success. You know, like I said, it changes the conversation. It connected activists and people who are passionate about economic justice locally. I think it educated tons of people locally, who maybe… if we're not meeting as a group as much anymore, we're still talking about that in your everyday life. You're still taking that with you. So I think it transformed people, and that is a huge success.

KP: Mm hmm. Through talking with Christina, I know you made good friends with her, but could you maybe elaborate on some of the connections you made with Occupy?

PH: Definitely the people like Christina, and Sean, and Vernellia Randall- Dr. Randall- Chris and Dana, um...who was the other one? Jeff Piper! Um, Ed Lacey, Logan Martinez… I could probably list- maybe not right now- but a group of about 30 people that are active in the community, who want to change things for the better, that I am connected with now because of that that I'm friends with on Facebook, that I have their phone numbers, that I talk to when I see them out at festivals. So even though, again, we might not be meeting, I always know about somebody's involved in this group organizing this- I know about that one. There's a rally coming up, that Logan Martinez, who was active with us, he's also… these people that I met, they're usually not just active in Occupy Dayton, right? So they're active in other community groups that are fighting for injustice. So I'll get hits for "this rally is going on in front of Representative Turner's office this week about jobs", so there's always that connection now, I think, because of that. Then that's just on a community activism level, and then actually some people that personalities worked out with, I've actually made friends with, that we actually hang out as friends now. I just went out to dinner- me and my partner- with a couple that we met through Occupy. My partner and I actually met through- kind of- through Occupy, so that's an Occupy love story. Then there were our friends [that] met at the camp and got married. So I think it did bring people together, who then not only just now, professionally or through the community, are connected, but it brought relationships together as well.

KP: There seems like there was a hostility about Occupy, from a lot of people who were not from a lot of the rest of the population in the United States. Why do you think people were so hostile towards it?

PH: I think probably the average person wasn't. There were some, like I said, you're going to have people who are misinformed, who just right away jump to… and the media, certain media, especially conservative media, will go right to that- communists, Soviet Union. It's that whole… especially older people who lived through the Reagan Era, and you know, I have people in my family like that. They came from a time where you had the brainwashing of if you're not “American consumerism, go corporations”, then that means you're with Russia and you want the government telling you have to do this, this is your career. So I think if you grew up in that Red- 20

Scare Era, then you're going to see anybody questioning American Capitalism as, "how can you do that!" and it's just this sense of outrage. You have to realize that that's just… that's how they were. I had people in my family that like could not believe I was doing this. They were like, "What are you doing? Oh my god! We're going to disown you." It's an education thing. I had some college professors that- I had never thought about it- they were like, "You have Socialism in America, but people aren't educated about this". You have public schools- that's Socialism. You have public health, public streets, public parks- that's all Socialism. All it means is you're pulling money together on a not-for-profit basis, and provide that anyone has access to it. So, you know, that's all I tried to do, was spread that message, but some people they don't want to hear that because they're shut down. They don't see the good points of it or anything. They have just been taught that you're either, "all for America and we're a great country and ra ra ra!" or we're for the Russians or somebody else. I think, again, it's from a lot of the Communism scare that was happening in the 70's and 80's.

KP: Forgive me if I asked this question already, but do you ever see anything like Occupy ever happening again?

PH: I don't know to that level because it really needed to serve a purpose. People were not talking about something that needed to be talked about. There was tension underneath the surface. We just had this huge crash and nobody was talking about who that hurt. They were more talking about getting the banks going again, making sure that Wall Street was running well. I think that needed to happen. The media wasn't doing their job. You had a few small voices trying to talk about what needed to be talked about, and that was the people, and an economic system that is not good for people, and that came out. Will it happen again soon? A big thing like that? It could. I don't really see things changing enough to where it might get to where people are so fed up again that they just hit the streets. So, I mean, it could happen again in a year. I would do it again. [Laughs]

KP: What could Occupy have done to make people understand the face of it better? Or could they have done anything? Because there is always that question people ask, "Well, what is Occupy?" What do you think Occupy could've did to kind of clarify that question from the beginning?

PH: I think, less focus- and a lot of people are going to disagree with this, some people will- but especially when it started getting toward the contention of the camps and stuff. Put less focus on making the camp survive and like having this huge revolution, and more about maybe getting some literature out, putting together a pamphlet or a booklet that’s available. Maybe some other strategies. Maybe trying to get those available in college classrooms. Doing like a coming together as a whole movement nationwide and using all the energy and power, and saying, "Let's write a book, let’s put out a manifesto, let's do something and get us all on the same page as one movement and then distribute that. I think maybe that would've done it. People just got so passionate about, "We're just going to overthrow everything now", and I think focused too much on the camps, and then the energy was kind of gone.

KP: Did you find that there was a strong anarchist element within Occupy?

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PH: Yeah. Occupy brought together a really diverse group of people. I didn't really know what anarchy is, besides like what you hear in slang language like, "I'm an anarchist. I just don't want any rules." I didn't really know what it was. I don't really identify with it, but I have a lot of anarchist friends now. I don't even understand that, what it is, to be honest.

KP: Yeah.

PH: It did have a huge… from what I've learned, a lot of the tactics used- and even the tactic of coming together in a public square like that- is an anarchist principle. There were a lot of anarchists in the movement, but there were also Libertarians, tons of them, there were Democrats, there were [independents], people who weren't anything, there were Socialists. I brought a diverse group of people together, but there were a lot of anarchists involved, that I met.

KP: Mm hmm. How did that mesh? Did that mesh well with other people?

PH: I think that actually, when we started having contention and stuff, it was probably because there were just so many clashes of styles. Some people were like, "No, you have to have leadership. You have to have somebody. There has to be structure", and then there would be another camp that would just be like, "No! This is a leaderless movement" which that is an anarchist principle, from what I understand. So there were probably a clash of styles, and that probably contributed to it. I don't think it was the anarchists fault, I just think anytime you get people together there's going to be a clash of styles. Like I said, I wish we would have compromised more, but there were some people… it just got so rigid where people were like, "This is the only way", and I don't think you can do that. You have to be able to- even if you think you have a theory of leadership style- if you're working with a diverse group of people, then you have to meet in the middle. There were some tensions, for sure, probably between anarchists and… I got a lot of slack because I think people saw me as, "I just want to give back" but I think probably people were like, "Oh, he works for a corporation, he's a banker, he's in the Democratic [party]" because I'm openly a Democrat. I vote Democrat, I work in the Democratic Party, and still to this day people in Occupy are like, "Why do you vote that? You're part of the problem", and I'm like, "Well, I just believe you can… there are certain good things they do", and I'm not gonna let the Republicans get elected. That's my thing. So I think there are tensions in there. People probably saw me as a mainstreamer, because I'm not, like, an anarchist or anything [laughs]. So, I don't know...

KP: What about the idea of horizontal democracy? How do you feel about that?

PH: I think it can work, but it's also a huge headache. [Laughs] Only because the concept, it takes a lot of- and again, somebody would probably disagree with me. It's a good concept and I think you need to strive towards that, but I think at some point it can become cumbersome if everybody has to say what they think everytime. It got to where I think even Occupy Wall Street used the 90% rule, like if you're voting on something, and you still have the 10% that disagree, as long as it's not over 90%, or excuse me -- less than 90% agreeance, than you can move on. I think we got to one point in Occupy Dayton where even if one person disagreed, we couldn't move forward. I'm like, well that's getting a little… if you're that much horizontal it can also be an impediment to moving forward, because you could just have somebody who wants to throw 22

up and is in a bad mood that day. So I think the concept of horizontal democracy, you do need to make sure that everybody's voice is heard in the process of making a decision, and you need to do that, but you don't want to also go so much in that direction that you can't make a decision. Or somebody who has leadership style- some people are comfortable getting up in front of a group, you should let them naturally maybe develop those. I don't think leadership is a bad thing if you have public speakers or things, but what I think is bad is if you get somebody who is particularly good at organizing, but not at making sure everyone is heard.

KP: How would you describe the year 2011? How do you think people are going to remember that year?

PH: It was the year of protest. People just being pissed off. It wasn't only here, but it started in Madison, Wisconsin, when Scott Walker was trying to bust the unions and everybody descended on the rotunda statehouse when they were doing the vote. It went into Egypt when the Egyptians were in the streets, and it spilled over to Occupy Wall Street. I think even Time magazine that year had "The Protestor" as their Person of the Year, and it had the protestor with the bandana over her face. So I think it'll be seen as a year of activism and just protest.

KP: Mm hmm. I'm starting to run dry on questions, so give me just a minute and let me see if I can think of another one... So I guess if you could just put into a timeline from the beginning: this is when the Facebook page of Occupy Dayton started; this is when it started to take off; this is when it… this is when it started to falter and this is kind of when everything fell apart, in a timeline kind of sense…

PH: So, the Facebook page started, I think, at the end of September. Like maybe I could look on the page and see when it was created, but it was like the last week of September when when everyone started to see Occupy on the news. So I would say that was the beginning, and then probably from then through the first week of October, was like a planning phase and just getting a bombardment of people being like, "Ah! There's an Occupy Dayton? Cool!" and like we went from like… I would come home from work and it would be like “a thousand new likes today". It was just everyone congregating to the page, and it was just like, "Whoa, this is kind of overwhelming. I don't know what to do." So that really… the first few weeks or so was everybody coming together. Once we had that first rally, that was like, "Okay. We're out here. The media is out here" We got some huge coverage. Dayton Daily News was very supportive. They did a cover spread on Occupy Dayton. So probably from that first rally, which was like the first Saturday in October, all the way through October 20-ish- that was like the Golden Era. [Laughs] That's when people were excited. There was lots of positivity. Everybody was in the streets. We had huge numbers. The weather was nice. That’s when the camp came to fruition. We had regular campers, we had permanent structures. Probably towards the end of September [October] we entered a phase of, the numbers are starting to dwindle a little bit, the weather is getting bad, our rallies aren't as big, there was a little bit of tension at the camp -- fighting, people I think started getting stressed out. That's a stressful situation, to be sleeping outside. [Laughs] Trying to find a bathroom. Having people yell at you or flip you off while they drive by. So, I think it started to get to people. I would say that probably towards the end of September, or, excuse me, October-beginning of November, tensions started to show through a little bit, and people were… that's when the debates started happening, and it was happening 23 nationwide. What are we going to do? We need to wrap this up. So that entered a new phase, probably through the whole month of November of infighting, and people leaving the movement and being like, "I support the cause, but I can't support what you guys are doing. We need to wrap this camp up. I'm done with this" and then walking away. We had tons of people walk away that month. I would say probably from December, then, that entered a phase like in the beginning of December of like, "we really need to wrap this up." We have 5 campers, we've dwindled down to about 20 people who are actively supporting this, and trying to convince the campers like, "You can't stay here. We have to get you in a homeless shelter or something." So, December was really focused on helping the campers get where they need, because we really did have some with legal issues, or medical issues. Some of them ended up with like medical conditions on their feet, and we had to take them to the hospital for being outside for so long. So that was really just a logistics month for us, I don't really know what was going on nationwide. Then, probably January through May was a planning and an activism time. We did rallies, and you had a core group of people who- the camps were gone, and it became more about, “Lets still keep moving forward. Let's work with other groups.” It was a smaller but a focused group in Dayton, and I think probably nationally. We had some successes, and I would say that probably by the time spring rolled around, probably April or May, it started dwindling off. People started getting tired. There was a little bit more fighting in our group. In particular, personalities were starting to conflict, and I think that was when it really started to unravel, at least for a lot of people. I don't know that it ever really unnecessarily unraveled, and it's not there, and the movement is not there. I believe the Occupy movement is still there, and even Occupy Dayton. The structure is there. I just think it kind of went into a dormant status at that point.

KP: What were the reasons that people were fighting over? What were the reasons all that was happening?

PH: I think stress. I think it was being tired. We heard that a lot. It took a lot to plan these rallies, especially when you have a core group. We felt like- my partner and I in particularly, we were pretty active in planning for, like, they called it #F28. February 28th. Because it was Leap Year. Shut down the corporations. So we worked with Occupy Portland, I got on the conference calls with the leadership in Occupy Portland, and it was a lot of just… and I know that Sean Cassman works. I think people were just getting tired. It starts to take a toll on you when you're planning rallies, especially when the numbers are getting down and it’s like a smaller group of you. We were there like every night, painting, because we had like some puppets and stuff to take out into the streets, and people started… I started hearing people say, "It's always the same people, we need to get new people involved", and I think people started feeling a little… feeling the effects of stress, and people started taking that out. It's like a family taking it out on each other. So, people would be like, "Well, it's your fault!" or, "I don't like the way you do this!" People started doing a little bit of that. That probably took us into- and for some people maybe subconsciously- wanting to walk away because they're tired, and now they have a reason. “It's because of "that asshole, so I'm just going to quit!” I think some people did that, you know? It gave them a reason, an excuse to just be like… because at some point you do have to, if you're involved in things, you have to get back to your own lives. So, probably all of the above. Smaller numbers. Stress.

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KP: Can you talk a little bit about that church y'all got? Because I never got the whole story behind-

PH: The church was, there was somebody that in December, when we were like, "What are we going to do with all this stuff? We gotta get this camp wrapped up, we're gonna have all this stuff." We had things that had cost money, signs that we perhaps might still want to use, lots of markers, staple guns, megaphones, a coffee maker. Just things. And one of them was a huge tent that we paid $800 for, and we thought we- I think we still have it- but we thought we were going to sell it and get the money back that we could use for protests or something, so we were like, "Let’s get it somewhere." Some guy, and I can't remember his name because he left the movement shortly thereafter, but he was friends with Gabriela who was a supporter of the movement, and he said, "Well, Gabriela has this church...", because we were still meeting after the camp left in the end of December, but we were meeting in the Public Library downtown in their meeting room, and he set it up. She said, " I support the movement." She was part of the movement, so she said, "I'll give you guys some space". So, we took it down there and she said, "You can have this room." It was like this hallway; there was an office and a meeting room in the hallway. So we just kind of put everything in there, and we operated out of there for about 6 months. Well, I take that back- until about 4 months ago. She sold the church. That's how we ended up in there. She was a supporter, and she had a connection with somebody who was in the group.

KP: Cool! Well that about wraps up the questions I had for you. Is there anything I didn't touch on, or anything that you wanted to say?

PH: Nah! I think it's great that somebody is documenting it, even if it's just in the archives and 50 years from now someone says, "What was this about?" It's just a cool thing that somebody is putting together, and it definitely was a cool thing locally, so I was definitely happy to help out.

KP: Well, I'm hoping to get a few more interviews. I appreciate you coming out, too.

PH: Yeah!

KP: So, I'm going to push the stop button.

PH: Alright.