Skylar Church, Salt Lake City, Utah: an interview by Michael McLane, 4 November 2011

Transcript (xx pages) of an interview by Michael McLane with Skylar Church on 4 November 2011. Part of the Occupy Salt Lake City Oral History Project, Everett Cooley Collection tape no. U-3107

Skylar Church, activist son of an understanding but hardly radical family, discusses the Occupy Salt Lake City movement. He recalls that the movement grew enormously following the creation of an Occupy Salt Lake Facebook forum, reporting that the movement grew by five thousand people in one day. His interview especially stresses the harmonious aspect of the movement, and he discusses the Occupiers´ democratic organizational structure, equating Occupiers with LDS missionaries, as ambassadors of their movement. He talks about the Occupiers´ attempts to educate themselves and the homeless people they shared Pioneer Park with, down to having an "Ask an Occupier" booth for the public. As a self-described public relations man, his attention is very much on the way the community interacted with the Occupiers, and he mentions Seth Walker and Seth Neeley as key public relations men for the movement. Mr. Church´s view of the Occupy movement´s roots and growth in Utah is closely tied to Utah history - he asserts that Utah was, in a sense, founded by activists, and believes its squatter´s rights provision protected the occupiers, though he expresses hopes that the LDS Church might play a major supporting role in the future. He touches briefly on education and immigration as national themes as well, and mentions the movement´s cross-state nature as some Salt Lake City Occupiers came from Portland and other cities. Project: Occupy Salt Lake. Interviewer: Michael McLane