Occupy Graham's week-long anniversary went off as planned as dozens of people met promptly at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday to protest at Graham's Wyatt Outlaw Park on Court Square. This meet up was ahead of their march planned for 5 p.m. today.
Occupy Graham came about in the hours following last week's raid on Capitol Hill, in which thousands of President Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol Building in the hope of preventing Congress from certifying Joe Biden's victory over the incumbent president.
"I grew up in a long line of men and women who served ...," said Occupy Graham organizer and participant Carey Kirk Griffin. "There were so many times my dad wasn't home because he was a paratrooper with the 82nd (Airborne Division). I just felt attacked that we allowed this [the Capitol Hill riot] to happen. ... I was mortified."
Griffin and a handful of others channeled that anger.
"It was me and three others who were inspired to make it happen," Griffin said, one of the founders of the group. "I went home that night and made the first graphic and made the first Instagram."
What started as four demonstrators quickly grew as the week went on.
"The next day I think we had 10 people, the third day we had 26 people," Griffin said. "It's been growing ever since."
Occupy Graham plans to continue protesting each day until Jan. 20.
Griffin hopes Wednesday's march from Wyatt Outlaw Park to the Graham office of District 13 Rep. Ted Budd will beat the group's attendance record. Budd was among the state lawmakers who voted against election certification after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol Building.
Budd's resignation is among the demands of Occupy Graham, in addition to prosecuting Trump, the expulsion of seditious lawmakers, a full investigation into last Wednesday's events, elimination of social media that harbors right-wing extremists, the arrest of the most prominent participants of the Jan. 6 assault, and hold those police officers who collaborated accountable. The group plans to read their list of demands outside Rep. Budd's Graham Office on Wednesday.