By Shane Burley and Laura Jedeed
GARY CORONADO / LOS ANGELES TIMES VIA GETTY IMAGES
The full version of this article appears in Truthout
It started last June with squatting. Quietly and without fanfare, Philadelphia activists affiliated with OccupyPHL and the Black Renter’s Cooperative broke into long-vacant public housing buildings and supported houseless families moving in. Then came the massive, barricaded protest encampment on Benjamin Franklin Parkway, a tree-lined oasis in the middle of the Pennsylvania city surrounded by some of Philadelphia’s most expensive housing.
“They totally could have used the cops to disperse the encampment,” activist Wiley Cunningham of Philadelphia Housing Action remarked. “But politically, it would have looked bad for them.”
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, who is white, was wary of the optics of clearing a mostly-Black encampment in the midst of last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests. When activists blocked construction of an expensive high-rise complex with their second protest encampment next to the Housing Authority headquarters, city officials decided it was in their best interest to negotiate…
Read more at Truthout
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