It’s 3 a.m. on Nov. 30 in San Francisco. Riot cops just raided Occupy Philly and Occupy Los Angeles tonight and the live streams are running on my laptop. We are preparing for a possible raid of Occupy San Francisco tonight or tomorrow. I’m talking back and forth with other occupiers and labor, community and faith allies, deciding whether to call for a mass mobilization tonight and to prepare for mass civil disobedience.

Eleven years ago yesterday, on November 30, 1999, a public uprising shut down the World Trade Organizationand occupied downtown Seattle.

That same week in 1999, three thousand miles away in Immokalee, Florida, farmworkers carried out a five-day general strike against abusive growers paying starvation wages. Two weeks ago, on November 16, 2010 those same growers -- the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange representing 90% of the industry -- publicly agreed to every one of the farmworkers "Fair Food" demands.

An article written for the Project South Fall Newsletter

It was still pitch dark outside and a thin, cold mist was in the air when the affinity groups charged with blockading Sixth Avenue and Union Street met for the last time. Scouts reported that the coast was clear. Sitting in the wooden pews of an old downtown Seattle church we reviewed our target once more. After days of nervewracking preparation, we were ready to do our part to shut down the World Trade Organization (WTO).

My name is Jessica Hume and I am a Canadian journalist, I work in the Middle East. I am looking for people who participated in the protests against the WTO Millenium Round in Seattle in Nov and Dec of 1999, for a piece looking at those protests, their impact at the time and what effect they still have now, 10 years later.
If you took part in the protests and are interested in sharing with me your stories of that experience, please contact me at either of the emails below.
Thank you so much.

Jessica Hume
jessicastaceyhume@gmail.com
jhume@thenational.ae

Below is an account of the N30 protests I wrote shortly after the tear gas cleared and the WTO left Seattle in disarray. I had come to Seattle a week before the protests to write about it for my website.

November 30, 2008

What lessons can we learn from the shutdown of the 1999 WTO
Ministerial in Seattle 9 years ago today and from the last decade and
a half of global justice organizing as we face today's major crises
under an Obama Administration? This was the question a group of
organizers from different parts of the last decades of global justice
organizing responded to last week at a forum in New York City put
together by Deep Dish TV, an independent video/media pioneer. Here are
my thoughts.

Nine years ago today:

What I Learned At The WTO Protests In Seattle...
by Pete Tridish,

A Ruckus I Couldn't Miss:

What I Learned At The WTO Protests In Seattle...
by Pete Tridish,

A Ruckus I Couldn't Miss

My name is Storm, i am 47 years old, and i identify as Revolutionary Ecologist, eco-anarchist, and a radikal scientist. I work principally under the auspices of Earth First! and Rising Tide North America. I was born white, male, rather hetero-oriented, working class amerikan...i would not consider myself "well-adjusted."