Rally targets unemployment & student debt

A spirited march from the city hall site of Occupy Philly on Oct. 17 focused on joblessness and the trillion dollar student debt crisis. More than 80 protesters chanted, “The banks got bailed out! Students got sold out!” on the way to the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, where Betsey Piette of Workers World Party criticized the $16 trillion handed over to bankers while 30 million unemployed and underemployed people are ignored.

“No funding cuts, no fees! Education should be free!” and “The people have spoken! The system is broken!” were the chants as Jamila Wilson of the Philadelphia Economic Advancement Collective led the crowd to the regional northeast office of the federal Department of Education. After a student decried her impossible-to-pay-back loans, Darryl Jordon of the Third World Coalition announced a petition campaign to forgive student debt. The average student in the U.S. graduates with a debt load of more than $34,000.

The next stop was the city courthouse, where Brother Weldon of the Askia Coalition Against Police Brutality put the student debt crisis into the perspective of other problems faced by communities of color. Attacking stop-and-frisk policies, curfews against youth and the education-to-incarceration pipeline, he defended political prisoners such as Mumia Abu-Jamal and Marshall Eddie Conway — leaders the system deems too dangerous to allow them freedom on the streets.

– Report and photo by Joseph Piette