The West Oakland BART station parking lot was packed with protesters of all ages at the shockingly early-morning hour of 5:30 am. Chants of “We are the 99%” and “Whose Port? Our Port!” became the rally cry as Occupy Oakland moved into the streets and headed for the Port of Oakland in what became an officially “successful” morning-shift port-shutdown.

The crowd of over 1,500 people moved quickly down the wide street to the port, with police cars leading the charge. As we arrived to the port, organizers began calling for 45-50 people to take over each terminal. Accordingly, a group would break off to seal an entrance as the rest surged onward.

At terminal entrance/berths 55, 56 there were well over a two hundred protesters. An organizer with a megaphone would intermittently cheer on the crowd with messages from fellow occupiers and their success of closing off various port entrances. Still others gave occasional updates of West Coast port shutdowns. The crowd cheered with joy at news of the closure of ports in Portland, Vancouver, and Los Angeles among others. And the picket line continued with renewed vigor, as a boom-box blasting Michael Jackson beats that facilitated dance in the frigid, foggy early morning hours.

Meanwhile the occasional bike messenger rushed past the crowd yelling frantically that “Fifty riot police are headed this way!” or “Berths 30,32 are in desperate need of support! Police are moving in.” In fact, a row of riot police did eventually arrive to 55,56 but withheld attacking the marchers.

 A drizzle set in around 7:30am, and with it arrived a small Toyota truck from Food not Bombs. A line quickly formed for coffee, tea and pastries. Additionally a cheerful nine-year girl and her mother passed out fresh oatmeal raisin cookies to port truck drivers, some of whom came to chat with marchers.

Three port truckers from Sacramento were causally gathered near their idling, loaded trucks and explained that they were happy the occupiers had come. They said there was a nearby yard where they could offload their cargo if the port did not open, and they would then return home for the day with half a day’s wage of $300.00.

By 10:00 am Occupy Oakland organizer Boots Riley had declared a “major victory” explaining that “effectively the Port of Oakland was shutdown”. He said people could go home but called on everyone to rally to Oscar Grant Plaza at 3:00 pm for a march to shutdown the evening shift at the port.

On the walk back to West Oakland BART, Longshoreman Deandre Whittan told me “Most of us are not getting paid today, but we support this. We are the 99% too.”