Jackson residents Erin Shirley Orey, Erma Johnson, Pahedadra Robinson and Cheryl Turner joined hundreds of others to demonstrate in favor of abortion rights outside the Mississippi State Capitol on May 21, 2019.
At age 95, Doreene McCoy, seated in a wheelchair, arrived at the Mississippi State Capitol on May 21, 2019 to protest a national wave of anti-abortion legislation. To her left is her daughter, Joedda Gore, who said her mother first began participating in protests after Donald Trump’s election in 2016.
Mississippi State Rep. Alyce Clarke, D-Jackson, speaks to a rally attendee. She joined abortion rights activists outside the Mississippi State Capitol on May 21, 2019, to speak out against a wave of anti-abortion legislation.
Derenda Hancock leads a group of “clinic escorts” at the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the state’s only abortion clinic. The escorts help patients avoid anti-abortion activists as they enter the clinic.
Planned Parenthood Southeast Director Felicia Brown Williams spoke out alongside other abortion rights activists outside the Mississippi State Capitol on May 21, 2019, in protest of a national wave of anti-abortion legislation.
Outside the Mississippi State Capitol, Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance activist Patricia Ice told the story of the illegal abortion she obtained before the U.S. Supreme Court found a constitutional right to abortion in 1973.
Former state Sen. Gloria Williamson of Philadelphia, Miss., shared a story about a failed pregnancy that nearly killed her in 1963. She told the story at an abortion rights rally outside the Mississippi State Capitol building on May 23, 2019.
Anti-abortion activist Coleman Boyd crashed an abortion rights demonstration at the Mississippi State Capitol on May 21, 2019.
Doreene McCoy, 95, and her daughter, Joedda Gore, 75, joined a protest against state bans on abortion outside the Mississippi Capitol on May 21, 2019.
Abby Williams, 24, and Cameron Baker, 26, showed up to support abortion rights in a demonstration outside the Mississippi State Capitol on May 21, 2019.
Dozens of men joined women in a demonstration in support of abortion rights outside the Mississippi State Capitol on May 21, 2019.
Men and women held “Stand With Black Women” signs at a rally in support of abortion rights outside the Mississippi State Capitol on May 21, 2019.
Dozens of men joined women in a demonstration in support of abortion rights outside the Mississippi State Capitol on May 21, 2019.
Yazoo City-resident Mindy Brown joined abortion rights demonstrators outside the Mississippi State Capitol on May 21, 2019. She held up a metal wire clothes hanger with the words, “Never Again” written on it—an allusion to a pre-Roe era when women used hangers to self-induce abortions, often with deadly results.
Derenda Hancock, who leads the group of “clinic escorts” who help patients avoid protesters as they enter the abortion clinic in Jackson, stands between a group of abortion rights activists and anti-abortion protester Coleman Boyd. Boyd crashed a pro-abortion rights demonstration at the state Capitol on May 21, 2019.

Around 200 Mississippi residents gathered outside the Mississippi State Capitol Building on May 21, 2019, to demonstrate their support for abortion rights. Two months earlier, the Legislature passed and Gov. Phil Bryant signed an anti-abortion law that bans all abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, which is typically around six weeks gestation. Other states legislatures have passed similar laws in recent months, too, with abortion opponents hoping to trigger a Supreme Court case that could overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that declared abortion a constitutionally protected right. At the rally in Jackson, women who remember life before legal abortion was easily accessible spoke out, recalling their experiences, and sharing both their fears and their hopes for the future of women’s rights.

Mississippi native Donna Ladd and partner Todd Stauffer founded the Jackson Free Press in 2002 in the capital city. The heavily awarded local newspaper did many investigations heralded across the state and nation and served as a paper of record due to its diversity, inclusion, in-depth reporting and deep connection to readers and dedication to narrative change in and about Mississippi. In 2022, the nonprofit Mississippi Free Press, founded by Ladd and JFP Associate Publisher Kimberly Griffin in 2020, purchased the journalism assets and archives of the Jackson Free Press. A Google grant through AAN Publishers enabled Newspack's integration of the JFP archives into the Mississippi Free Press website to become part of a more searchable archive of recent Mississippi history and essential journalism.