Weary but determined Occupy Wall Street protesters strolled into Washington in the rain on Tuesday, completing a 13-day march from New York for a cause they said was far from over. Carrying a US flag and an orange "people before profit" poster, they planned to go directly to both occupations that have taken root in the US capital since early October, before going on to the Capitol building later in the day.
"To be actually this close to DC is unbelievable," Mike Glazer, 26, an actor from Chicago who was among the original 20-odd marchers who set off November 9 from New York, told AFP just outside Washington. Stopping along the way at protest camps in Philadelphia and Baltimore, the "Occupy the Highway" march - mostly along US Route One - grew to about 50 participants who finally entered Washington in two groups.
They had been in Philadelphia when New York police stormed the Occupy Wall Street encampment in lower Manhattan that had triggered nation-wide protests against social inequality and corporate influence on US politics. As his comrades enjoyed free coffee from the bohemian Busboys and Poets cafe in Hyattsville, Maryland, Glazer said he hoped the trek from New York - billed as "Occupy the Highway" - would set an example.
"This was a sort of experiment, a king of spearhead of something that I hope will be much longer marches," he told AFP, his plastic poncho and backpack wet with rain. "We want marches to continue. We don't want our march to be, 'OK, that was the march and that's it'," he said.
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