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The Occupiers of Wall Street: Who They Are and What They Want

By Julie Shapiro | October 5, 2011 3:08pm
Audrey Hollingsworth, 19, works in the information center at Occupy Wall Street.
Audrey Hollingsworth, 19, works in the information center at Occupy Wall Street.
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DNAinfo/Julie Shapiro

LOWER MANHATTAN — Storm Shimp is not an experienced protester.

At 18, she works two part-time jobs in Lancaster, Pa., while she prepares to apply to massage therapy programs. She avoids watching the news, because the enormity of the world's problems makes her feel powerless and sad.

But now, in a turn of events that would have surprised her just a few days ago, Shimp is one of hundreds of people fighting for their vision of America's future by camping out in Downtown's Zuccotti Park.

Shimp set out for New York with a couple of friends after she saw the widely circulated video of an NYPD supervisor squirting pepper spray at a group of young women protesters, then turning away as they fell screaming to the ground.

After seeing the footage online, Shimp researched the protest and was inspired by its call to end social inequality and government corruption.

"I thought, 'I want to be part of this,'" Shimp said on a recent afternoon, as she sat under a tree surrounded by blue tarps and faded sleeping bags, on the edge of a drumming circle in Zuccotti Park.

"I like educating myself about what's going on. Now I'm going to try to be more aware of what's going on around me."

Along with the aging squatters, young hippies and jobless veterans who have gathered at the lower Manhattan protest, there is also a growing number of those like Shimp, who never expected to occupy Wall Street but are thrilled to be there and don't want to leave.

Marty Joosten, 21, a computer programmer and student from Utah, bought a one-way plane ticket to New York to join the protest a few days ago after he saw an online video of police shoving a young man to the ground while arresting him.

Joosten said he had never protested anything before, but was intrigued by the swelling movement in New York and the sudden sense that change was possible — which made it worth the risk of losing his job.

"What's the point of having a job to support the corrupt system?" Joosten said as he swept up cigarette butts Tuesday afternoon, as part of the volunteer team that keeps the protest's home base clean.

"If this goes big, who cares if I don't have a job?" he continued. "If I didn't go, I might regret it the rest of my life."

Some of the protesters don't have a job to lose.

Asa Lowe, 39, a Brooklyn resident, said he joined Occupy Wall Street because he was laid off from his job as a McDonald's cook four weeks ago.

"It made me mad as hell," said Lowe, who has been sleeping in Zuccotti Park for more than two weeks. "I want people to know about Wall Street greed and how the government is letting us down."

Audrey Hollingsworth, 19, who was visiting New York from Virginia when the protests started, initially just dismissed it as "a silly hippie convention."

But a few days ago she decided to check it out herself, and the people she met impressed her so much that she took up the cause herself, volunteering at the central information booth to field questions and coordinate activities.

"This is my generation, finally taking a stand," she said. "We are all in control of what happens."

No two protesters are there for the same reason, and their motley array of causes — nationalize the banks, tax the millionaires, forgive student loans, overthrow the government — can make the campaign appear disorganized to outsiders.

But those who step inside Zuccotti Park see a fully functioning miniature society, a city-within-a-city where loosely coordinated committees gather hot food, sleeping bags and medical supplies, offering everything they have for free, to all comers.

Impromptu musical performances help keep up morale, while anyone who needs a break from painting cardboard signs and engaging passersby can check a book out of the donations-based lending library.

The protest has no leader and makes decisions by consensus at daily "general assembly" meetings, where anyone can participate or speak. Smaller task forces meet throughout the day to come up with ideas on everything from how to do laundry to how to deal with those who break the no-drugs policy.

Miriam Siegman, 69, a Lower East Side resident who was a freedom rider during the civil rights movement and has seen her share of protests, said Occupy Wall Street is unlike anything she has ever experienced.

"I thought it would be a lot more flower child, face painting, very nice but go-nowhere stuff," Siegman said. "But I think there's a chance — just a chance — that this could make change."

Siegman, who lives on food stamps after losing her retirement account in the 2008 crash, said she was particularly heartened by the range of people she has seen protesting, including those who are middle aged and middle class.

"People who generally don't come out, who don't protest, are realizing that this is a legitimate thing to do," she said. "That's a good thing."

Now in its third week, the protest has already gained wide attention from the international media and civil rights groups, thanks in part to the videos showing the NYPD's response to the generally peaceful demonstrators.

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund filed a class-action lawsuit on Tuesday against the city alleging that the NYPD violated protesters' rights by leading them onto the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge during an Oct. 1 protest and then arresting more than 700 of them.

Now, Occupy Wall Street is gearing up for another major protest on Wednesday afternoon, joining for the first time with several influential labor groups, including the Transport Workers Union, Local 100.

Jerry B., 24, an Upper East Side resident who studies at the New School and declined to give his full last name, spoke for many when he said he is determined to stick with Occupy Wall Street for as long as it lasts.

"We are very serious about this," he said. "We're here for the long haul, no matter how it turns out. We're here for everybody."