4:00pm exceptionally clement weather as I wait for the RIPTA bus to downtown where Occupy Providence is scheduled to start at 5:00. A car pulls up, my minister, Rev.James Ford, and his wife Jan give me a ride to First Unitarian Church.

A dozen of us are gathered, some wearing t-shirts for our campaign for equal rights, ‘Standing on the Side of Love’. The meeting house is full- rented for the day by Brown University School of Medicine celebrating ‘white coat day’ for new students.

I’ve heard talk lately about how we’re supposed to despise students, but thinking of how they’ve signed on for years of grueling study in order to be able to take care of sick people I’m not in the mood for that.

We walk downtown to Burnside Park, and there at the gates is a lone woman holding a sign that says, ‘Occupy Washington, Not Wall Street’ with a few words in smaller print about spoiled elitist Brown students. I do have to respect her fortitude in being a one-woman counter-demonstration. Especially as the students come singing down the hill and are swallowed up by the crowd of several hundred.

Burnside Park is about 3/4 full, people of all ages, races and political persuasions. The only presidential campaigning here is for Ron Paul, whose supporters have put up posters everywhere. Someone has created a street shrine of sorts, dedicated to hating on Barack Hussein Obama, Lincoln Chafee, Gordon Fox and other members of the General Assembly. The signs are on 8.5×11″ paper, so if you see them looking large on Facebook you are looking at a close-up. My camera conks out with a dead battery, but pictures and video are being taken by everyone.

General Burnside is adorned with posters and an American flag, and he serves as a stage, but what is the message? It’s hard to define, other than a sense that the economic unfairness of our current system must stop now. This anger won’t easily be co-opted by any politician, and won’t be appeased by promises. Many of the people I recognize here are looking to citizen action, are active themselves, and as the saying goes, ‘when the people lead, the leaders will eventually follow’.

I see Dr.Ivan Wolfson, who has provided medical care to homeless and uninsured patients for many years through Travelers Aid and Crossroads. Barnaby Evans, who with Sandor Bodo conceived Waterfire, Rev. Duane Clinker of Open Table of Christ church, two of our State Senators, Rhoda Perry and Josh Miller, two men in Native American regalia, ministers in garb, several people in wheelchairs, men and women in union shirts, parents with strollers, WWII veterans, anarchists waving black flags, people speaking Spanish, one lone man in a suit, a brass band.

The crowd begins to march toward the Federal Building and into the financial district. The band begins to play– and compared to guitars, a brass band really works for a parade. We take a long route, my favorite chant– ‘Tell me what Democracy looks like–This is what Democracy looks like’. Downtown is full– good for visibility, bad for traffic. We march up Westminster Street, where all the cars have been removed for the parade. The only vehicle on the street is a van that says, ‘Intelligent Labor and Moving’. When we walk past the Convention Center people are lined up on the sidewalk, a few waves, some thumbs down and fingers shook at us. A lot of the guys flipping us off are smoking cigars–it’s a manly thing. A lot of the marchers are smoking cigarettes and I get more secondhand smoke than I really want tonight.

We turn up Francis Street, past the Providence Place Mall and to the State House. ‘Whose streets are these? Our Streets.’ Unlike past demonstrations at the State House, there is no podium, no speaker. The crowd surges up the steps to the door. ‘Whose house is this? Our house’. A testimony is read and telegraphed down the crowd in lieu of a sound system. ‘Where is the press?’ some chant. Nowhere to be seen, but this is the 21st Century, and all of us are the press. Hundreds of cell phones and cameras are recording the scene.

We march back to Burnside Park where some tireless drummers are keeping the energy up. This looks likely to go on late, so I walk to the bus shelter on Kennedy Plaza. A man likes my sign and starts a conversation. We talk about the Kennedy years, when America put a man on the moon. People wait, the public transit gets cut again and again, making it less of a public good than a last resort. We believe in a ladder to success, and in these times enough bottom rungs have been cut to spread the pain to the middle class. The bus fills up and people stand.

Business and corporations have a place in American life, but we are citizens, not consumers. Everything needs checks and balances. Unbridled corporate power, especially after Citizens United declared that corporate money is a form of free speech, has distorted our political system. The first reform we need is campaign finance reform.

My favorite sign at the Occupation simply said, ‘Vote’. It’s anyone’s guess who this crowd will vote for, no politician has done enough to address the crying need. 10% unemployment, impossible college debt, millions still lacking health care. The levees have broken. Will we do it right this time?

ANOTHER WITNESS: Ruth Horowitz at Giving Up the Ghost has a post, Occupational Hazards that covers more of the amazing sights on that night.