Wells Fargo being protested weekly over investments in private prisons
Wells Fargo bank spent their bailout money on investing in the GEO group, the second largest owner of private prisons in the world after CCA. Because of this, community activists are now protesting weekly at Wells Fargo banks at the Tivoli Theater(Columbia Heights) and 7th and T sts (Shaw). On Jan 24 they were reinforced by Occupy DC activists at a Columbia heights Wells Fargo protest.
Video focussing on the speakers
The protest was too large to fit on the sidewalk in front of the Wells Fargo in the Tivoli, so it had to be conducted in the park area on the other side of the street instead. Police motorcycles guarded the Wells Fargo branch to keep it from being shut down.
Passers by were urged to boycott Wells Fargo and close any existing accounts. Protesters reminded them that there are now more Black men in prison in the US than were in slavery in 1850-and that Well’s Fargo is investing in today’s Jim Crow. Speakers bluntly called the 50 cents per hour “work” in GEO groups’s prisons slavery.
