Sam Graham-Felsen

I worked harder on this than any article I’ve ever written. It’s a first-person account of the time I spent at Occupy Boston, including an overnight in the camp. 

It’s true that the burden of maintaining Occupy Boston’s physical encampment has channeled its organizers’ energies into an improvised version of social work. But there is something deeply impressive about what these activists have accomplished on that front too. They’re spending day in and day out with the ninety-ninth of the 99 percent, the people the rest of us work so hard to forget about. They may be enabling substance abuse, but they’re providing a haven that’s far safer than a back alley; they’re serving a thousand meals a day, and the food is far better than it is in the shelters; they’re listening and talking to the people everyone else ignores. I think to myself: If any of these young leaders ever held elected office—the idea of which is anathema to everyone I spoke to—they’ll be so much more equipped to deal with our biggest problems, because they intimately know the poorest of the poor.

Thanks for taking the time to read it.

The Occupy movement has changed the way we talk about class, and it may also be changing America’s racial dynamic. From my piece for New York Magazine:

Occupy Our Homes was one of the biggest coordinated actions the Occupy Wall Street movement has taken since the raid on Zuccotti, with the event in East New York only one of more than twenty cities staging coordinated demonstrations. It’s notable that the Occupiers are moving from a broad, demand-free ideology to a concrete, targeted campaign. Even more striking: There are a few hundred white people in East New York and many of them are having conversations with the black and Hispanic people who live here. 

Here’s a new piece I wrote for GOOD about so-called “viral videos” and whether they actually help political campaigns:

It’s nearly impossible to predict what will catch on—and even when something does hit the viral jackpot, it’s not clear that it will deliver much more than a temporary shift in the media narrative, and at best, a bump in the polls. More often than not, the viral videos that matter—the ones that don’t just shift the poll numbers, but the culture—don’t come from campaigns, but from volunteers.

My latest piece for GOOD explores how the Occupy movement is dealing with its greatest test: surviving the winter. A group of scientists and architects from MIT, Harvard, and beyond, are experimenting with low-cost, low-tech methods to keep protesters warm:

Radachowsky fashioned his Tiny Tiny Home (an extreme iteration of the growing Tiny House movement) out of a TV cabinet that he found in the trash, plus plywood, Styrofoam, and three layers of clear polyethylene sheets—which create a transparent dome to let light in. The entire project cost just $100, making it replicable for other protesters. The structure is elevated, creating distance between the icy ground and Radachowsky’s body. And unlike the three-season tents most Occupiers use, the Tiny Tiny Home is insulated and has a sturdy roof that will resist being crushed under the weight of heavy snow. Most importantly, Radachowsky is able to skirt the ban on solid structures at the Occupy Site because he added bicycle wheels and a tow hitch. Technically, it’s not a “permanent structure,” so it’s allowed. Radachowsky says the General Assembly is weighing his proposal for a $1,000 allocation to build 10 more Tiny Tiny Homes for Occupiers, and he’s optimistic that it will be approved.

If you know of others who are innovating to help keep #ows alive, please shoot me an email at sam@samgf.com!