The Occupy Austin movement joined the larger Occupy Together movement by rallying in front of City Hall.

On Oct. 6, the rally not only gathered members from Austin, but saw a good number of occupiers come in from out of town.

“My two friends and I drove four hours from Denton to participate over the weekend,” said Arianna Jones, a student at North Texas University.

The Occupy Wall Street movement was originally proposed by Canada-based magazine Adbusters and was also fueled by the activist group Anonymous. Even though Adbusters originally tried to start the movement, the Occupy Wall Street movement is leaderless. The movement claims that it is made up of the 99 percent, voicing its displeasure with the top 1 percent of the financial elite.

Occupy Wall Street released its “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City” on Sept. 30. Among the demands made in the declaration are calls for changes in the banking and tax systems, healthcare, freedom of the press, military and energy policy.

Occupation began in New York City on Sept. 17 and has grown rapidly to have over 400 Occupy rallies in cities around the nation. Austin joined the movement last Thursday as more than 1,500 people gathered outside of Austin City Hall for the General Assembly.

As the Wall Street protests have released their declaration, the Austin protests created their own mission statement in conjunction with the New York document, which reads, “Our mission is to take our rightful place in the political process, and take the reins of power away from profit-driven interests.”

The Thursday meeting consisted of an open mic for protesters to vent their frustrations with the way the nation is being run, and many others took to the sidewalks in front of the building, holding signs and receiving honks of approval from passing cars.

“I came here straight from work,” said protester Jesse Mabus, who spent the majority of Thursday evening holding signs on the corner of Lavaca and Cesar Chavez.

Many spoke at the assembly on Thursday, and the participation was not limited to adults. One boy who is still in elementary school got up to speak briefly about his frustration with the unhealthy food he is fed every day at school.

“The protest was full of a lot of energy and excitement from the attendees. It was nice to see that support. It also surprised me how far some people came. One person there had driven six hours,” said Ian Peoples, a junior at St. Edward’s University who attended the protests on Thursday and Friday.

The Occupy movement is scheduled to continue until its demands are met. After what most considered to be a successful first day, lesser numbers turned out Friday and Saturday. Jones was in attendance for both days.

“Friday was fantastic. There was a diverse group of people from all different backgrounds,” Jones said. “Saturday was a little disappointing because there were a bunch of young hippies, and it changed the atmosphere. I still stand in solidarity with all of them but I would have liked to see more conservatives and people of color.”

Jones’ mother was one of the individuals who got up to speak on Saturday, inspired to do so after she received a letter from Bank of America on Friday notifying her that her mortgage payment would be increased from $393 to $780.

“It’s almost impossible for her to scrape together the extra money on her fixed income,” Jones said. “I guess it is almost fitting that the letter came Friday because until then she had no plans to participate.”

The news media has been criticized for under-reporting the happenings at the Occupy movements around the nation. Multiple interview requests with protesters were turned down on Thursday for fear of their words being twisted in a news story.

Political parties were wary to get involved and endorse the protests at first, as the protests state that they are “not a political party.” However, in the past week as the movement gained momentum, Democratic candidates are slowly showing support for the occupiers.

That is not the case on the Republican side, where many are slamming the protests. Presidential hopeful Herman Cain was the most critical, saying on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” that the protests are “anti-American.”