NEW YORK – 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.

Beyond that, though, there’s a diversity of age, gender and race — in part due to the recent injection of labor union support, and fueled by social networks — that is striking to some who study social protests.

“Most people think this is a bunch of idealistic young kids,” said Heather Gautney, a sociology professor at Fordham University and an analyst of social protests. “But the wider movement is remarkably more diverse than it’s been portrayed. I’ve seen a lot of first-time protesters, nurses, librarians. At one protest, the younger element seemed actually to be in the minority.”

Pi-Sunyer, who lives in Montclair, N.J., was drawn into the fray on Wednesday the same way many were — via social networks. She saw a post from a friend on Facebook and realized it was time to join.

“I just decided to get off the couch and be in control,” she said, holding a hand-lettered sign that read: “Wise OWLS Seek Economic Justice 4 All.” (OWLS was a play on the initials for Occupy Wall Street — with an “l” for little people.) “I was oblivious before. I can’t be oblivious now.”

Nearby, a speaker in lower Manhattan’s Foley Square yelled into a microphone: “I’m tired of sticking my hand in my pocket, and only getting my leg!” The so-called “Granny Brigade” pulled out guitars and played a song. The crowd milled, bearing an endless variety of signs:

“Make Banks Pay!” “Corporate Greed is Not Patriotic!” “Give My Professor Health Insurance, Please!” “Food is A Basic Human Right!” “Bernanke Burnout!” An optimistic one: “This Is The First Time I’ve Felt Hopeful In a Long Time!” And a pessimistic one: “Even My Union is Corrupt!”

Cherie Walters wasn’t carrying a sign — she WAS a sign. Both the front and back of her shirt were covered in scrawled slogans.

“I came here from MICHIGAN because the top 20 percent are waging class warfare against the rest of the U.S.,” it read in part. Walters, 58, also a former teacher, had driven all the way from Michigan with her husband, Rich.

Her biggest gripe: credit card swipe fees, which she said were killing smaller businesses. She also was concerned about unemployment in her home state. “I’m very angry at how poverty is degrading our people,” she said. As she spoke, a much younger protester interrupted her to hand her a leaflet on health care reform.

The couple, who’d been following the protests all week, getting updates via Facebook and Twitter (and posting their own video on YouTube), complained that protesters had been described by others as unruly mobs or young troublemakers. Did she look like a young troublemaker, Walters asked? (At least there was a silver lining, she quipped: It was flattering to be described as young.)

Both Cherie and Rich Walters had protested during the Vietnam War, as students at Central Michigan University. Compared with those anti-war protests, she said, this one was way more diverse — “different ages, colors, even languages,” she said. Legal Aid lawyer Steve Wasserman, 63, who joined Wednesday’s march with his union and remembered his Vietnam protesting days, agreed. “The old left was very male-dominated,” he said.

Such diversity is what organizers were hoping for, said Patrick Bruner, spokesman for Occupy Wall Street. Since launching the protests in mid-September with a group of mostly young activists, “we’ve made a concerted effort to diversify our group,” he said, with an outreach committee and caucus groups for people of color, for example, or for women. “We’ve gradually seen our message resonate with different groups of people.”

Organizers also have been encouraging people to tell their stories in a virtual protest on tumblr, the social network, spotlighting people of different backgrounds, each tale of economic hardship ending with: “I am the 99 percent.”

Experts say the role of social networks in building and organizing these protests, like in the recent revolt in Egypt, can’t be overstated. “I’ve been studying and attending protests for a decade, and Facebook is the most effective organizing tool I have ever encountered,” said Michael Heaney, a professor at the University of Michigan.

What the movement doesn’t have right now, these experts note, are the same concrete goals of some past social movements — a lack that many demonstrators seem to be embracing, at least for the moment.

“We’re a broad range — everyone’s affected in a different way,” said John Crisano, 27, who’d answered a call for college students to attend Wednesday’s protest. “But we’re all here because we’re upset at the way the government is being run.”

Karen Livecchia, 49, agreed. “For now, it’s a lot like the Internet — leaderless, spaceless,” she said as she collected signatures at the march, spurred to action by an email from the liberal group MoveOn.org. “It’s hard to tell what it will lead to. But I’m not concerned that we don’t have specific demands — that will come.”

Livecchia, a Harvard grad with a master’s from New York University, was laid off 21 months ago from her publishing job, and for her, too, this was the first protest of her life. Her anger was palpable.

“I did everything I was supposed to do,” she said. “I have two fancy degrees. I’m from a union home, raised to believe in the system. But you know what? The system doesn’t work! It’s too polluted with corporate money.”

“If it’s like this for me,” she added, “how about the waiters, and the truck drivers?

What led Abdullah Pollard to the protests, just months after he became a U.S. citizen, was no less than the dashing of his American dream.

Pollard, 58, came to the United States from Trinidad in 1996, and became a citizen in June. “I didn’t feel empowered as an immigrant,” he said at Wednesday’s march, where he volunteered as a marshal. “Now I am a citizen, and I want to stand up for the downtrodden.”

A father of three adult kids, Pollard was laid off in April from his job in telecommunications. He’s looking for work again but said it’s hard at his age. He feels let down by a country where, he said, “both political parties march to the same drummer — the powerful corporations.”

“You leave your own country and you expect things to be better in America, a step or two up from what you left back home,” he said. “And then there’s this rude awakening.

“America is just not what it used to be.”

___

Online:

http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/page/2

NEW YORK – It looks like a rock festival the morning after, a tangle of tattered sleeping bags. But the demonstrators taking part in the three-week-old protest against Wall Street have created a functioning city within the city, a small, working democracy.

There are task forces in charge of food, security, first aid, sanitation, legal help and Internet access. There’s even a library. A generator supplies power for laptops and cellphone chargers.

A general assembly of anyone who wants to attend meets twice daily. Because it’s hard to be heard above the din of lower Manhattan and because the city is not allowing bullhorns or microphones, the protesters have devised a system of hand symbols. Fingers downward means you disagree. Arms crossed means you strongly disagree.

Announcements are made via the “people’s mic.” If you need to announce something — someone’s wallet has been found, there’s a march at noon — you say it and the people immediately around you repeat it and pass the word along.

Participants in the Occupy Wall Street protests — organized to decry corporate greed and the gap between the rich and poor — say they have no leaders but are making decisions by consensus.

“Since we can no longer trust our elected representatives to represent us rather than their large donors, we are creating a microcosm of what democracy really looks like,” reads a flier.

Somewhere between 100 and 200 people sleep in Zuccotti Park, and hundreds more arrive during daylight to volunteer and protest.

Andrew Flinchbaugh joined the sanitation working group and was sweeping the plaza Friday. “The idea is basically, you see something, you take care of it,” he said.

Another protester who gave his name as just Samer was sorting donated hats, gloves and coats. He said passers-by stop to ask what protesters need, like underwear or socks. Then they buy it and drop it off.

The medic area was well-stocked with first-aid kits. Registered nurse Amy Cruickshank said she has treated cuts and scrapes and some cases of hypothermia.

Many occupiers were still in their sleeping bags at 9 or 10 a.m. Friday, while others were serving bagels and scrambled eggs, sorting donated supplies or posting to the Internet.

“I slept great,” said 20-year-old Avrom Siegel, who arrived from Buffalo on Wednesday. “At a certain time people start to quiet down.”

Siegel brought his own sleeping bag but was given a piece of cardboard and a teddy bear-print quilt to put under it.

Supporters have donated food, clothing, medical supplies, soap, razors, books and cash. Some drop off their offerings, while others send them UPS. A local pizzeria will deliver an “occu-pie” if someone orders one.

Katie Cristiano arrived Thursday with co-workers from an organic farm in New Hampshire and started volunteering for kitchen duty. Besides pizza there is usually bread, fruit and granola bars. One day this week someone delivered eight 8-foot sandwiches that were cut up to serve at least 100 people. One night there was vegan chili.

There are no bathrooms in the park, so protesters go to nearby businesses like Burger King and McDonald’s. “Anywhere we can go that they won’t throw us out,” Cristiano said.

A few local sympathizers have offered protesters their showers.

Plastic bins labeled fiction and nonfiction hold the library of donated books. Among the available titles: Tom Wolfe’s “I Am Charlotte Simmons” and “The Peppered Moth” by Margaret Drabble.

An effort is being made not to destroy the park, just east of the World Trade Center site. A sign reads, “Please walk around flower beds, not through flower beds. Show these flowers and their homes some respect.”

But the owner of Zuccotti Park, developer Brookfield Office Properties, is unhappy with the occupation that began Sept. 17.

“Sanitation is a growing concern,” Brookfield said in a statement Thursday. “Normally, the park is cleaned and inspected every weeknight. This process includes power washing, litter removal, landscaping and other maintenance as required. Because many of the protesters refuse to cooperate by adhering to the rules, the park has not been cleaned since Friday, September 16, and as a result, sanitary conditions have reached unacceptable levels.”

A caller on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s weekly radio show complained Friday about “general incivility” and the noise from the drums. Bloomberg replied: “We are trying to deal with this in a way that doesn’t make the problem grow and protects everybody’s rights. There’s no easy solutions here, and I can just tell you we are working on it.”

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly was asked at a City Council hearing Thursday how long the protest would go on.

“We are accommodating peaceful protest,” he said. “We are proud of the fact that we do that in this city. If people are going to be here for an extended period of time, we’re going to accommodate them as long as they do it peacefully and in accordance with the laws and regulations.”