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This story originally appeared in the Jackson Free Press. It was added to the Mississippi Free Press website in 2025.
Note that any opinions expressed in legacy Jackson Free Press stories do not reflect a position of the Mississippi Free Press or necessarily of its staff and board members.

“The van will leave about 5 a.m., Friday, January 17,” said Landon Huey, vice chairman of the Jackson Greens and a political organizer extraordinaire. This time, he is speaking to a group of 13 people seated around the room of Computer Co-op in Rainbow Plaza. Huey is taking the show on the road, organizing a trip to the National March on Washington to demand “No War on Iraq” on Jan.18.

A recent L.A. Times poll found that two-thirds of Americans don’t believe the White House has presented enough evidence to justify an Iraqi war. The effort to keep the U.S. from launching a pre-emptive attack on Iraq is shaping up to become the largest anti-war movement since Vietnam. The last national peace rally drew 200,000 to Washington on Dec. 10. “It was inspiring to see a group that big,” said Glen Sandburg, a Gulf Coast resident who is organizing a bus trip from there and who attended the first rally. “In the ’60s it took 10 years to get to this point.”

The rally being held on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday weekend is serving double duty; to give honor to his memory and to try to reclaim the government from the current administration and return it to the people.

“I don’t think there’s ever been a more important time to be a patriot,”Huey said. Those planning to ride with the Greens should notify Huey by Jan. 8. “Elvis’ birthday, the next execution, and the anniversary of the Jackson Greens,” he said with a sarcastic giggle.

— J. Bingo Holman

For more information, call call Landon Huey at 948-7818 or visit http://www.internationalanswer.org (note: if you type in internationalanswer.com by accident, you’ll get the Republican National Committee’s Web site.)

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The Mississippi Free Press produced this story through the MFP Solutions Lab, supported by the Solutions Journalism Network. This series digs into Mississippi’s systemic issues and sheds light on responses to them in other communities. Beyond just reporting on problems, these stories interrogate their causes and inspect potential solutions.

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.