NEW YORK (AP) - As other protesters chanted vigorously around her, Nancy Pi-Sunyer stood off to the side at the Occupy Wall Street rally, clutching her sign, looking a little like a new teacher on the first day of school.
In a way, she was: At 66, this retired teacher was joining a protest for the first time in her life.
"I was too young for the civil rights movement," Pi-Sunyer said earlier this week as she joined thousands of protesters marching in lower Manhattan. "And during the Vietnam War, I was too serious a student. Now, I just want to stand up and have my voice be heard."
As the protests have expanded and gained support from new sources, what began three weeks ago as a group of mostly young people camping out on the streets has morphed into something different: an umbrella movement for people of varying ages, life situations and grievances, some of them first-time protesters.
There are a few common denominators among the protesters: their position on the left of the political spectrum, and the view that the majority in America - the "99 percent," in their words - isn't getting a
fair shake.