The Occupy movement came to Providence, RI tonight, as well over 1,000 joined in a peaceful march and occupation of the city's Burnside Park. Pictures up on Flickr.

After a brief session in the park, the marchers wound their way past the Federal Building and the streets of downtown, with more joining all along the route, until by the time they reached the Providence Place Mall, the crowd was taking up most of the street and several blocks long. They marched up to the steps of the State House, and I have never seen a demonstration pack the steps like that. Solid people, all the way up.

The group then headed back to Burnside for the evening's General Assembly, using the same "People's microphone" familiar from the Occupy Wall Street protest. Until you've been in the middle of that, repeating back, it's hard to get the sense of how compelling — and how totally unlike, say, our current dysfunctional Town Council — this kind of meeting really is.

More in my Twitter stream and the OccupyProvidence hash tag.