BU occupiers protest sale of YMCA gym to Northeastern University

College of Arts and Sciences senior Allison Sebastiani said the Boston University Occupies Boston Speak-Out on Sunday showed the coming together of various communities for the sake of the movement.

“That’s what this movement is about – the people. It’s a people’s movement,” she said.

Sebastiani was one of several BU students that marched from the YMCA of Greater Boston to Boylston’s Bank of America branches and ultimately to Copley Square, where more than 200 protesters demonstrated.

Six BU students met at Marsh Plaza at 11 a.m. and took the MBTA green line to the YMCA. A crowd of 35 protesters left the YMCA and marched along Massachusetts Avenue and toward Newbury Street before cutting over to Boylston Street.

Demonstrators protested the impending sale of the YMCA gymnasium to Northeastern University for the purpose of building a new dorm, said YMCA and Mass United member David Mynott II.

“Originally we were going to have a large speak-out here and then have a mobile speak-out going all the way down to Copley,” said Brandon Wood, a College of Arts and Sciences senior who helped organize the march. Wood said he and other BU protesters changed their plans so they could coordinate with other student protesters.

Wood said a “speak-out” is a demonstration that includes a short speech or lecture.

At Sunday’s demonstration, protesters said they aimed to occupy a Bank of America location on Boylston Street, but they had discovered that it had closed down a few minutes before and headed down the street to the Bank of America branch at Exeter Plaza instead.

Although a security guard stopped demonstrators from entering, they stood in front of the bank arm-in-arm and blocked the entrance from customers.

“At that point, the bank actually locked the doors and closed the bank because they were afraid of us entering the bank so the customers couldn’t get into the bank anyway,” said protester Judea Beatrice, a senior at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.

Beatrice said that while protesters did not want to inconvenience the bank’s customers, the inconvenience comes as part of the protest’s “larger battle.”

The protesters ended up at Copley Square, where about 200 others joined them from groups such as Ocupemos El Barrio and labor unions.

Ileana Tauscher, a junior in CAS, said she felt hopeful about the message the speak-out would send.

“I hope that there’s a little bit more publicity to show that even though a lot of the occupations are being taken down, that the movement still has a lot of momentum and there’s still so much that it can do,” Tauscher said.

Michael Pitter, a senior in CAS, said he felt Occupy the Hood should have joined the protest to highlight the heavy police presence and poor education system in Roxbury.

“Boston itself is pretty racially polarized so I just wanted to fix that. I can’t do it single-handedly,” Pitter said. “The issues that people face everyday are different, but I think we can find common ground and realize that there’s a source.”