Occupy Wall Street, a movement spurred by the country’s economic malaise, turned into a national protest over the weekend when mass arrests in New York focused media attention on the protestors and political action spread to other cities.
In New York, police arrested more than 700 civilians on Saturday for turning the Brooklyn Bridge into a walkway.
And copycat movements spread to Chicago and Los Angeles, where hundreds of protestors are now camped out in front of City Hall.
The media largely ignored the protestors when they first began to congregate in lower Manhattan Sept. 17.
But celebrity visits have helped put the protestors on the map, as has the Twitterverse and pictures of topless protestors demanding jobs.
In New York, actresses Susan Sarandon and Roseanne Barr have come by, as have rapper Lupe Fiasco and Princeton professor and activist Cornel West.
Here's a interview with Sarandon from the protests:
Former New York governor David Paterson paid a visit, while Yoko Ono and Alec Baldwin voiced their opinion on Twitter. (Yoko's tweet: "I love #OccupyWallStreet As John said, “One hero cannot do it. Each one of us have to be heroes.” And you are. Thank you. love, yoko")
Protests cropped up in other cities, including Los Angeles, but it was the growing conflagration in New York that remains the focus.
Increased attention first came as a result of the movement’s growing numbers and a video of NYC Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna (or as Jon Stewart dubbed him, Tony Baloney). He was pepper spraying a group of women.
For their part, the protestors already had their own publication, a four-page broadsheet distributed on Friday and Saturday.
On Saturday, protestors moved from their base in the financial district’s Zuccotti Park to the Brooklyn Bridge, leading to mass arrests, including that of New York Times reporter Natasha Lannard (she has since been released).
While the number of protestors' was small, once there were prominent figures involved, the media jumped in.
Public figures like Baldwin tweeted the Twitter handle #OccupyWallStreet:
@stacyherbert: @AlecBaldwin As future Mayor of NYC, any comments on #occupywallstreet? Stiffer penalties for white collar crime!!
So what will the protestors do to keep the attention there?
