Thousands of people flooded downtown New York City on Wednesday for the Occupy Wall Street movement’s largest protest to date. With labor unions and students joining en masse, tens of thousands marched from Foley Square to Zuccotti Park (renamed “Liberty Plaza”), the site of the protest encampment where hundreds have been sleeping for nearly three weeks.

Iman Elsayed: “I am a registered nurse in New York. I’ve been coming here for the last two weeks, before work, after work, during lunch break, to support the Occupy Wall Street, to stand up against what’s going on. We’re bailing out the banks, bailing out Wall Street, while working-class and middle-class Americans and New Yorkers suffer and struggle to pay our bills and to find employment.”

Robin DiAngelo: “Never in the history of our world has this much wealth been concentrated in so few hands, and it’s just out of control. Finally people are waking up and saying 'no.' And personally, I find it really insulting when I hear the term 'class warfare.'”

The march was peaceful, but New York City Police Department officers later beat a handful of protesters with batons after they toppled a police barricade in an attempt to march down Wall Street. Police say a total of 28 people were arrested. Smaller protests against Wall Street are continuing or being planned across the country in cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, St. Louis and Seattle.