‘No Kings’ Hernando rally draws small crowd with big message

It's the fourth "No Kings" rally held in DeSoto County since early 2025, but it's not the only time the organization has staged a protest. Jacobs said she and a group of others take to the sidewalks with their banners to denounce the Trump administration twice weekly. 

Saturday’s demonstration was part of more than 2,000 held nationwide, with millions estimated to have participated. The Hernando rally drew people from neighboring counties and states — Arkansas and Tennessee — which Jacobs said shows that people are engaged and searching for the opportunity to make their voices heard. 

"People wanted to go someplace where we're talking about the importance of the rule of law, and how our nation does not put up with kings since 1776," Jacobs said.  

Jacobs, a Democrat, said she was the first person at the Circuit Clerk's office to cast an absentee ballot in late September. While Mississippi is one of the few remaining states that doesn't have an early voting period, it does allow for absentee voting, with an excuse such as traveling out of the county or being older than 65. 

"It's a talking point to say to people, 'I already voted absentee. Let me talk to you about absentee voting and why you should,' because one of the tricks that Republicans have been doing more and more is they've been running out of absentee ballots,” she said. “If you vote absentee, the clerk never runs out of ballots.” 

She said around 1,600 people have voted absentee in DeSoto County, a far cry from the 115,000 registered voters. She's concerned by the number of people who are on the inactive voter rolls, and urged nonvoters to make their voices heard on November 3, if not voting absentee. 

"People are just putting their heads down and thinking, 'If I just get through this, it'll all go away,'" she said. "But it's not going away. It just keeps getting worse. You've got to vote."

Mike Whitson, from neighboring Marshall County, said this is the fourth No Kings protest that he's attended. He said he's tired of what's happening to the United States, from the national debt to the unauthorized war with Iran. 

"We're being held back by a bunch of rich, greedy b*******," Whitson said. "I'm sick of the rich people ruining this country. It's just sickening. We're leaving so many people behind." 

Whitson said he's paying attention to proposed redistricting, and he believes that it's all a plan for President Donald Trump to have more Republican leaders in Congress. 

"I'm against gerrymandering. I'm all for nonpartisan committees choosing a district based on geographical lines and not these crazy shapes they come up with to pick their voters," he said. "The representatives are trying to pick their voters. The voters don't get to pick their representatives anymore." 

He pointed to Tennessee and its recent redistricting, which eliminated the state's only majority-Black district of Memphis and divided it into three Republican-leaning ones. 

"It's cheating, is what it is," Whitson said. "It's just cheating. Because they're the party in control, they're going to cheat." 

Sandra Barrett traveled down to Hernando from Collierville, Tennessee. She said she wanted to support Indivisible DeSoto Mississippi because, even though the organization is small, it's growing and doing powerful work for North Mississippians. 

Barrett is a community organizer whose mother, who survived bombings, taught her the importance of fighting against systems of oppression, she said. 

"I don't want this country to become a fascist country, so we have to vote, and we have to vote early, and we have to use our vote as our voice," Barrett said. 

Barrett said every week, she attends a protest over Interstate 240. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as the Homeland Security Task Force, have come to their peaceful gatherings. 

"[They] show up and try to intimidate us, and it's like no. No one can intimidate us, because we are standing for what's right in this country," she said. 

After the November 3 elections, she hopes for kindness in the U.S., no matter a person's background. 

"Courage is contagious, and we've got to have courage to stand up for ourselves, our country and everyone in our country," she said. 

Lois Stewart-Wiebe came from Coldwater, Mississippi, about 10 miles south of Hernando, to protest. She said she's worried about the cost of living and healthcare. The current administration doesn't show respect for the U.S. Constitution, she said, or anything considered American. 

"We need to replace that. We need people who think of the population, the people who have the power, who now have no healthcare," Stewart-Wiebe said. "Their life is more expensive. They can't find a place to live. Things are definitely worse, and he doesn't care, nor does the party that supports him." 

Stewart-Wiebe hopes sanity will return to Mississippi and the American government. She doesn't want to see the world get burned down vindictively, she said. 

"I want to see reasonable, rational consideration of what has gone wrong, understanding how to prevent that in the future, and trying to effect the change they can with the understanding that they still have Trump in the White House for another two years," she said.

Maya Miller is a Report for America corps member covering democracy and government for the Gulf States Newsroom. This story was produced by the Gulf States Newsroom, a collaboration between Mississippi Public Broadcasting, WBHM in Alabama, WWNO and WRKF in Louisiana and NPR.