Occupy movement protesters fight on — now in support of Bernie Sanders

A few hours after Bernie Sanders announced he was running for president, a group of activists associated with Occupy Wall Street sent an email blast endorsing his candidacy.

It was a perfect match. The protesters, whose ragged encampments across the United States in 2011 sought to call attention to growing income inequality, finally had a presidential candidate who vowed to tax Wall Street and take on the "billionaire class." Sanders even embraced their movement's catchphrase, haranguing the nation's wealthy elite as "the 1%" in nearly every speech.

The activists quickly went to work for Sanders in early primary states and online, where one Occupy organizer coined the #FeelTheBern hashtag that became the campaign's de facto slogan.

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"We went from this moment in Occupy where we were just beginning to shed a light on these issues in a profound way on the national stage to the moment we're in now, where we actually have a candidate for the highest public office in the country who has a platform that is addressing all of the issues that Occupy raised," said Jorgensen-Briggs, who was involved with the Des Moines Occupy movement.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-na-0201-sanders-occupy-20160201-story.html