Mississippi Happenings

Welcome to this week's edition of Mississippi Happenings podcast.

My name is David Oles and each week is my friend and cohost, Jim Newman.

Jim, how are you buddy?

If I were any better, I'd be twins.

uh gosh.

Well, did you get all your grandchildren uh graduated?

Well, I got two of them graduated and two left to go.

And the bad news is when the present oldest one, the youngest one rather graduates, I will
have four graduations in that year.

Post-doctorate or post-degree, regular graduation, college graduation and high school
graduation.

I don't know where the money's coming from.

good luck buddy.

I wish you luck on that one.

ah This week our topic of discussion is political activism.

We have two guests joining us today to talk about their grassroots group, Indivisible
Northeast Mississippi.

Our first guest is Mary Jane Meadows.

She was born in Mobile and lived in Mobile Bay, Dog River and Alligator Bayou.

Sounds like Louisiana.

ha!

it

was educated in segregated public schools until racial integration in 1969.

She pursued her higher education degree at Auburn University, University of Alabama at
Birmingham, and received her BA at the University of Mississippi at the age of 54.

She is a homemaker, a volunteer, turned community organizer, and activist.

She and her husband live in Tupelo.

In 2017, she began the All-Volunteer Grassroots Group in Divisible Northeast Mississippi,
which now has a member base of 450 followers, 300, excuse me, 30 to 50 members meeting

monthly.

And she's also an active member of the Methodist, excuse me, of the Episcopal Church, I'm
Methodist, Episcopal.

Mary Jane, thank you for being with us today.

Thank you, I'm just happy to be here.

Good.

Also joining us today is Jamie Rebentisch.

Jamie grew up in Philadelphia, Mississippi and went to Ole Miss pre-pharmacy, moved to
Houston, Texas, where she finished her pharmacy degree.

She lived there for 28 years before returning to Mississippi 17 years ago.

She's a night shift pharmacist for the NMMC, which is what's at North Mississippi Medical
Center.

Okay, good.

and she also has four adult children.

ah She is the chair of the uh steering committee for uh Indivisible Northeast Mississippi.

And Mary Jane is the founder and communications chair.

Ladies, Mary Jane, thank you so much for being with us.

Thank you.

Pleasure to be here.

Good.

Okay, tell us about Northeast Indivisibles.

Northeast Mississippi Indivisibles.

You want to take that Jamie?

Sure, so we're a grassroots group part of a bigger national group that started in 2017
after the election of Donald Trump Mary Jane started the group with just maybe four or

five women and it quickly grew I came over to the group about 2018 I was a lot

uh member of a different party.

um anyway, I saw that they were having a gathering at Fair Park and I joined in.

It was uh a protest about the Mueller tapes that was going on at the time.

um I saw that they were very active and I started going to the uh monthly meetings.

um I quickly got involved in it then.

So Indivisible is an activist group that we advocate for ah equality, diversity, and
inclusion and all that that uh encompasses.

If there is a group that is a minority group that is being singled out, we try to advocate
for them.

We also uh

get involved in our elections, um we work very closely with the GOTV Get Out the Vote,
where we try to get people registered to vote and we um advocate for them to oh be

civically engaged.

um We go and try to meet with our um US and state representatives and senators.

We make phone calls to their offices if there are issues that are coming up, which are now
daily issues.

In particular, about bills coming up or oh things going on in the national um forefront.

um We get involved in local politics.

We get involved with local issues.

One of our issues that we worked very diligently on a couple of years ago was the um jail
issue.

The board of supervisors wanted to push through a bond at the taxpayers' expense to pay
for a new jail at the expense of about $80 million.

And we effectively got that shut down.

We did not think that that was a

a good way to spend the taxpayers money.

We met constantly at the board of supervisor meetings and we got 7,500 signatures on a
petition and eventually they let go of the issue.

It has reared its ugly head again.

from last year of 2024 and into 2025.

So, but those are some of the things that we get involved in.

Jim?

it.

uh

This is what Jamie just went through.

Just further proves what I've always said.

If you want to get a job done and done well, find a busy woman.

you

And it works.

ah Mary Jane, when you founded this organization, did you have big dreams for it?

Or did you think it was just going to be kind of local and ah maybe 30 or 40 people?

Or did you think it was going to grow to who knows what now?

no clue.

We had no clue.

I had no expectations except that we were frightened.

I was probably in my little white lady bubble.

I don't want to disparage any garden club because I'm a garden club member, a garden club,
white lady, you know, ethic there.

And I didn't know what existed outside of that.

But then I was so surprised.

I was just sure.

I liked Hillary Clinton's

platform.

I did not realize the negativity around that, but when I knew oh the caustic violent
rhetoric that came with the Trump agenda and campaign, I was just amazed.

when I saw the women's march on uh the internet right after the election, I was heartened
and amazed and saw

soon discovered this indivisible organization that was fledgling and just beginning.

And so we started this little in-home group and then we only had women because we were
scared to let men in because we thought they would take over.

And so with them in September 17, we became co-ed.

And that's been good.

And now we're totally open.

ah We had no idea.

We thought several times this movement would fizzle ah during COVID.

People kept showing up.

We had Zoom.

And we kept meeting weekly.

We would go out to lunch once a week and then have a monthly meeting, ah building
community.

We found out how lonely and isolated people were in this uh state and region that um tends
to...

be more conservative.

We have a progressive mindset, like multicultural, multiracial democracy.

And so then when Biden was elected, I said, well, surely it's going fizzle.

People kept showing up and giving money.

We have raised an amazing amount of uh funds to do the work we need to do.

Then ah we kept showing up and then we worked in the election, shocked when Donald Trump

one again and the project 2025 agenda was coming in, that was scary.

So then when that came about, since then, we didn't know what was going to happen, but
we're seeing a huge resurgence and uh people coming out and 10 people joining every day,

signing up for every action that we have, money.

We raised $3,000 last month with a challenge match.

And so we're enjoying a lot of camaraderie and great new strength to resist the agenda
that's before us now.

You manage to uh turn out substantial amounts of people, numbers of people ah at protests.

ah

either at Fair Park or in front of a congressman's office.

How do you go about that?

Thank you.

I'm going to speak to that and Jamie may want to as well.

um The Indivisible National Network of which we're under their nonprofit umbrella.

So we do not have to get our own nonprofit status, which saves us time, money and
bureaucracy.

One thing about grassroots is that we're able to be nimble.

We're not weighed down with the infrastructure.

We've got our

Grassroots infrastructure, Indivisible gives us the ability to raise funds.

The Mobilize uh link, we sign up with Mobilize for an action.

And we have group leaders and all the people that sign up we can communicate with.

We bought a billboard at Barnes Crossing uh during the month of May last time.

And it was so fun.

It's like a, that's a dream come true.

We put the QR code for the June 14th action on the billboard and people could zero in and
sign up.

So we had about 400 sign up through that medium that uh Indivisible provided.

And so oh that's how we, I had one, one gentleman came, we came from Oxford.

Eupora, Hamilton, Alabama, because it's on the world wide web.

So, ah you know, we get people from all over coming to this, you know, oasis in this
desert.

What did the billboard say at Barnes Crossing?

Well, you know, the wonderful world of digital is so fun because we were able to have
three messages rotating.

And this billboard uh in town is the intersection of Barnes Crossing and North Gloucester.

It's got the longest light time, eight seconds.

It has the biggest number of cars coming through there from the region.

And so we could send three digital images.

We copied one from Huntsville, Alabama.

All these indivisible groups, we follow each other on social media.

you know, I go, hey, send me your digital billboard text template.

So they send it and it said, Trump's tariffs are a tax on your groceries.

Trump's tariffs are a tax on your trucks.

And then this one we put up was about with a lady on a walker saying, are you ready to
take over for mama when her Medicaid runs out?

And so, you know, that's like engaging.

And it's the truth.

If these cuts go in, and that's why we're just here too, to tell people to call your
congressman, congressperson.

And so we'll tell you more about that later.

Anything you want to add, Jamie?

oh No, I was just going to piggyback on what you said because it does get a lot of
interest and then people will come to our meeting to see what it's all about and then we

can engage them.

You know, I wasn't really civically engaged until I started going to Indivisible and I
didn't understand the importance of making those phone calls to the congressman's offices.

Yeah, I wouldn't encourage anybody who's listening to this podcast.

If there are issues coming up, if there are bills coming up, find out what those bills are
and then make those phone calls because they actually track those phone calls and let them

know, you know, they'll ask your name, your phone number, your zip code that you live in,
your address.

And they know me, they're like, hey, Ms.

Revintish, yes ma'am, we've got you down.

Because I call so often.

But anyway, um make sure that they have that because they make tick marks on what you're
calling about.

If you're calling about to stop the Medicaid cuts and the SNAP cuts, um they will make a
tick mark on that.

enough of those calls.

You know, one person making a phone call may not make a difference, but when an aggregate
number of people make those phone calls, when 400 or 500 people make those phone calls

about that same issue, they have to stop and listen.

Thank you.

You have a monthly meeting, you say?

And I think you've got one.

Yes, we do.

Our monthly meetings are the second Tuesdays of every month and they are from 530 to 7
o'clock at the link center and to below.

From like 530 to 6, we have uh a happy hour where we spread out our we'll have food and
appetizers and drinks and whatever and kind of.

co-mingle with everybody there at the meeting and grab something good to eat and drink.

And then we usually get started about six and we're usually over by seven, seven fifteen.

And, you know, like I said, we talk about local issues, things that are going on
nationally, any number of things.

ah They endorse candidates that are running for office.

So.

David, let's make sure that we, at the end of this, that we mention again the meeting time
and date and place for anybody that's interested ah so that doesn't get away because

they've got some big plans coming up.

had day when she said happy hour.

Hahaha!

We're a BYOB crowd.

m David, you ought to come down.

You ought to come down.

It's worth the trip.

Tell me about some of the protests you've had.

I'll jump in with that.

I've on our banner back here, which is one of our fun things we take to all the events
where we go to up at the very top there.

2018 was our biggest one yet March for Our Lives.

We networked with the March for Our Lives coalition and when the Parkland mass shooting
occurred and what how many children were shot at school massacred.

And so people came out for that when we were a fledgling group.

had 200 people, beautiful crowd.

And our very first one was in 2017 when the Senate and House were going to try to repeal
the American Affordable Care Act, remember?

Repeal the ACA Obamacare.

They wanted to institute Graham Cassidy.

Okay.

our first one and we were scared to death.

However, we rose to the occasion, followed the directions that Indivisible gives you for
putting on event.

We don't think of this.

They teach you how to write a media advisory, how to do a permit with the city, how to
plan an agenda.

We had speakers, we have a sound system.

music, so we had a march and everybody, you sign up for our group there to get the
newsletter.

So that was great and we have had, oh, for every big incident of gun violence we meet and
then for whatever uh issue that is seeking to oh compromise the rights of injustice for

all, we will.

Can you think of others, Jamie?

Yeah, that was the.

Which one was that when that was I forget there's been so many of them we had hands-on was
that Okay Right, right.

Yes, that was our biggest nothing we had like maybe 400 and something people's that signed
up for that one I think maybe close to 300 people actually showed up for that But our our

biggest one yet.

We're hoping is coming up on June the 14th

When Trump wants to have his military parade in DC, we're having there are currently 450
something events planned all across the United States and Europe.

Europe has gotten in on this.

And the theme of this one is no Kings Day.

we are um and and uh talk talk.

oh

Trump always chickens out.

So our next Indivisible meeting on Tuesday, we will have taco Tuesday.

I'm going to supply all the fixings for tacos and taco salad.

And we will, we are loving all these memes and how much we get to uh put that out there.

um He hates being laughed at and we're getting a big kick out of this.

think one of the big things that strikes me is that not only are you getting a message
out, you're bringing a lot of people together and you're having a lot of fun doing it.

It's difficult when it's...

do have a lot of fun.

We've got a lot of people.

I've met a lot of people that I wouldn't have ordinarily met through Indivisible.

And we get together and have lunch.

We get together and go to coffee.

um We have our meetings where we oh hang out and get together with our people that are at
our meetings and talk about things that are going on.

And it is fun.

It's a lot of fun.

If I can interject at some point here, you know, we started out as a group of, and this is
a demographic for uh Indivisible Nationally.

It's older white women.

the older, well, we're retired and we have time and now you're not afraid of anything
because you can't lose your job.

so, girl, oh, you're not retired.

Okay, I can't believe that you're, see, you gotta have bravery to come on here if you
still have to make a living, okay?

I have nothing to lose.

But anyway, we started as this white group.

Well here, I didn't know many gay people, I didn't know any trans people, and we, you
know, to get out of my white bubble, we intentionally went to make friends and establish

connections with African American groups here.

We joined NAACP.

We helped with campaigns they were doing, just what we had learned.

sponsor, like we'll be sponsoring the Juneteenth gathering here.

We work with the GOTV coalition.

So we are now strongly bi-tri-racial.

And so we have four black people, women and men, on our steering committee.

It is a joy to be in...

real relationship with people and work toward a common goal.

Yeah.

As, as a older white male, I only found out about Juneteenth and what it, what that was
about four years ago.

And, you know, one last, you know, the last podcast was with, uh, Lovie West, who I adore
her, uh, and Virginia, Tolliver.

And it was talking about segregation and some of the things, like you say,

Like you said, you live in a bubble.

We sometimes stay in our little group and they're staying in our bubble and we don't
realize what's going on.

So that's really, that's interesting.

there a particular, uh Jamie, you mentioned earlier, you had a lot of people that hands
off oh Medicaid, hands off social security.

ah And this is for either one of you.

Is there an issue that really gets people motivated?

Okay.

issues or is it the social issues like the Medicaid and social security?

I'll jump in there.

um You know, it's all of those, all of the above.

And of course, the people, know, the issues that hit the kitchen table issues, the
Medicaid issues, the social security issues, veterans, there is a, you know, these

protests are not only put on by Indivisible,

but their individual is joined in with a lot of other groups.

The 50501, that's 50 protest in 50 states on one day.

um The Move On, um Stand Up for Democracy, there's a lot of different groups that are
going in on these protests.

And so, um

Yeah, there are a number of issues.

There's a veterans, excuse me, there's a veterans protest that they are doing on the 6th
in conjunction with D-Day.

um Because, you know, uh we have a lot of veterans in our state and in our area and their
benefits are being cut.

It's, you know, you don't have to get involved if nothing ever hits you.

But when things start to affect you,

that is when people tend to get involved.

And so, yes, we are, like Mary Jane said, we've made a lot of oh gay friends and trans
friends.

And I really was not even aware of some of those issues, but we have a good number of
those, um people who have started coming to our meetings and helping out in these

protests.

But yes, all

any and all of those issues.

Whenever it affects you, that's when you get involved.

Okay.

Thank you.

I would say in our state for several years, we have been working for Medicaid expansion.

As you know, Mississippi was one of the few states, 10 or 11, who did not expand Medicaid.

And it hurts our state tremendously.

It kills people.

ah So we are working.

We took a bus last year, loaded it up and took it to Jackson.

for the in-person event on the Capitol steps.

Our state senator, Chad McMahon, came out and sat with us on the steps, said, Chad, how do
you feel about this?

Can you get this moving?

Now, of course, with Trump's election, you know, all the Medicaid expansion may be out the
window.

So our people here in this most vulnerable, poorest state, the state with the highest
number of

Amputations in the country because of diabetes and lack of access to care die, become
disabled.

We have huge disability roles.

So we need to provide more access to healthcare for everyone.

You will not have a good workforce if you do not have healthcare and education.

Do you remember the Wall Street Journal piece that came out?

back what several months ago, last year, remember?

It was Go-Dissin Mississippi going ah well, and everybody was taking umbrage, CDFs, oh,
that's just awful.

And I go, well, honey, look at the facts.

Jamie is on the front lines in healthcare.

She saw people die.

She worked herself to death at her job because people, we're now at one of the vaccination
rates because people are-

issuing uh vaccination.

So our uneducated population or not adequately educated, you know, are seeking to, you
know, make things worse.

So in order to grow and stop the brain drain, as our governor uh decries, we are going to
have to do some work on the infrastructure.

So that's one of our huge issues.

Due process for immigrants.

Undocumented, anybody do your homework on due process.

It applies to every person, whether you're a felon, thank goodness for our president,
whether you're a felon, whether you're a regular citizen, whether you're visiting, every

person on this soil gets due process.

So we have our...

partnering with a group now called the Amigos to work for immigration advocacy um and be
sure that families who might have people detained have what they need to take care of

their families.

One of the things that we uh try to do with our podcast is educate people.

And you mentioned the bus trip to Jackson.

Tell us about the other bus trips you've taken because they're educational.

I'll jump in on that one.

The bus trip that we recently took back in the fall was to Philadelphia, Mississippi,
where I grew up.

As you are probably are all aware of, hope you are because this is one of the reasons that
we took that trip because the history is not being told correctly.

this was last summer was the 60th anniversary of the Freedom Riders.

summer.

And the Freedom Riders were black and white people who came down from the north to try to
get people registered to vote in the southern states.

In Philadelphia, Mississippi, there were three civil rights workers, two from the north
and one local person who were murdered in June of 1964.

and their bodies were finally found in August of 1964.

The perpetrators, of course, got off with an all white jury.

Eventually though, in 2005, the DA at the time in the Shove County brought that trial back
up and

They were able to prosecute the main players and the big player was uh Mr.

Killen and he ended up dying in Parchman.

So he did pay the price.

But anyway, we, Indivisible, we wrote a grant and we got the money paid for that grant for
the bus trip.

took a bus full of

there were 50 of us on that bus.

uh Our good friend Dick Maupas, who I grew up with, actually he's more my oh siblings, my
older siblings age.

Dick and Terry Maupas had us to their place, which is at Four Corners ah in the corner of
Attala, Leek, Winston and the Shoba counties had a...

rolled out the red carpet for us.

They had a breakfast for us.

told the story of what happened during Freedom Summer.

And then we went to the church that was firebombed, a black church that was firebombed
prior to these murders happening.

um And then we went to the actual um place that they were murdered.

We went to the jail.

where the uh men were kept before they were let go and eventually murdered.

He rolled out the red carpet for us.

He had a fabulously catered lunch where we had the mayor of Philadelphia speak and talk
about all of the changes that have happened over the years there.

There's still a lot to be done, but um there is a coalition there.

um in Philadelphia in the Chauvin County.

um And they really tell in depth the story of Freedom Summer and everything that happened
there.

So that was that bus trip.

We also went to Birmingham to the dedication of the 60th anniversary of the bombing of the
16th Street Church.

um We did that the year before.

So Indivisible is great.

Like Mary Jane said, there's money out there.

And if we ah apply for grants, they will usually uh honor those grants.

And we got money.

One of our members who's on our steering committee, her nephew owns a bus company.

And ah it's his bus that we were able to take um that accommodated another probably 50, 60
people on that trip as well.

In some of these protests,

that you guys participate.

ah

Do you ever feel, do you ever fear for your safety?

Well, let me me jump in there real quick on this one.

I'll hand it over to Mary Jane.

So the last protest that she was talking about that had so many people, neither she nor I
were able to be there.

I was actually at a function at Dick and Terry Place at Four Corners and I think Mary Jane
was out of the state.

But anyway, neither one of us were there.

And so we ah got our

group together and we had our African American members were actually the ones that that
did everything.

Now we did a lot of the behind the scenes work before we left, but they were the ones that
actually held that protest.

And I got a text from a woman who had signed up for a protest on uh the wee hours of the
morning on Saturday morning of the protest.

saying that her mother had gotten a, uh had found out that there was a militia group that
was planning on coming to the protest that were not uh amicable to us on our side.

so I immediately called, uh Jim's wife, Denisha, was one of the ones that was helping with
that protest and the other people that were helping.

And I said, okay, you need to let the police know.

You know, I never know about these things if it's real or not real, but we can't take any
chances.

And the police were right on it.

They are very friendly with us.

were there in plain clothes and in police cars.

You know, their presence was known.

there was one lone

militia person who came up on his motorcycle and I think he felt very defeated

We were talking about how we uh have taken some group building bus trips.

We found out back in September of 23 or 24 ah that Katanji Brown Jackson was gonna be the
main featured speaker there at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama for

their 60th anniversary.

So we loaded up the bus at 5 a.m.

and went to hear her.

It was one of the most inspiring things.

that we've ever seen any of us personally or as a group.

And so those things.

wait a minute, for those that don't know, who is Miss Jackson?

Justice Katanji Brown Jackson, the newest member of the Supreme Court.

Fantastic.

I mean, we're dealing with an audience that sometimes is...

It's important to make ourselves clear.

So that was a big, big moment.

And that's what things have come our way by enlarging our vision and uh the personal
development that we've all had.

oh Like we said for our huge uh April 5th public action, is what we can call them too,
that people came that were too scared to even say something on Facebook.

Yeah.

I can't remember what I was gonna say, but anyway, was, the group building is just
incredible across all kinds of lines.

You talked about the billboards earlier and I'm looking at the website and I love this.

A tariff is a tax on your groceries.

A tariff is a tax on farmers.

A tariff is a tax on your truck.

It's a terrified you.

love that.

Go ahead, Jim.

Huh?

Absolutely.

Talk about, mentioned the kitchen table issues and Jim and I talk about that too.

Jim, you had something?

owns a truck pretty much.

That's it.

It is.

ah I've just been very impressed ah with how this group has grown over the, I guess it's
eight years now and getting stronger every year.

How many chapters have you got, I guess chapters or organizations are there in Mississippi
now?

That is growing.

um There's a new one in DeSoto County.

There's a new one at Horn Lake.

I think there's a new one that may be reorganized in Jackson.

um Bahalia, Starkville...

Yeah.

So we hope to, we're going to get together and network and have a Mississippi coalition
going.

But uh we help each other.

I was on the phone today with the person who's starting the DeSoto County Indivisible and
helping her to set up her fundraising.

So we're helping each other and it's just kind of fun, real fun.

and yet you all belong to a national organization.

Who's the leadership of the national organization?

The national leaders, this was started by a couple who were from Houston, Texas, who were
staffers on Capitol Hill, Israel Levin and Leah Greenberg.

when Trump was elected in 2016, they wrote a Google doc about, they thought we should use
the Tea Party tactics to disrupt and make some noise.

to disrupt the status quo there.

And so they are still in leadership, but they have built this incredible machine uh that
uh serves, know, I personally, as an on the ground neophyte that we were, they provide

incredible leadership, responsiveness, uh legal team.

graphics, whatever you need, uh they are personal, they are servants.

That's what they come across as.

Their service ethic is wonderful.

uh

One of the things that you mentioned earlier was that they also tell you, they give you
guidelines of like, how do I do the permits?

And maybe some security is that they also give you those things to work with.

There are toolkits that come out with every action that we do and those toolkits involve
all of that, know, training modules, security.

uh We listen to several videos on how to deescalate if that ever happens.

We've got posters, graphics, optics.

um

how to do a media advisory, uh what our focus is on, how to get speakers, how to get
people engaged.

So it's, you know, we don't have to reinvent the wheel.

It's all been done for us.

We just have to follow that, follow the steps.

I guess let's go ahead and talk about the, oh I know that you've got a, and I don't know
if it's protest, the uh right word or a community event uh coming up on June the 14th.

If one of you would talk, ah tell us all about on June 14th.

I think that Jamie mentioned it earlier, the national movement uh and protest is an okay
word, you know, that's good.

Demonstration, public action.

The idea is to ...I do too and to get a mass of people, bodies count.

If you care, don't be yelling at the TV.

Get yourself in person here.

You know, show up because that's what matters now.

And this is no kings that we are a democracy.

We the people, not we the billionaires.

Elon Musk is gone to the house now because people came out and said, no, Elon, we're in
charge, not the billionaires.

So uh the rule of law due process, which we're seeing break down in the treatment of
immigrants here in our nation.

ah So we are here to say no kings.

And I'll say no kings.

We know Elvis is our king here in Tupelo, but in North Mississippi.

But that's all.

uh No, no kings.

We're not going to act like a king with our gold everywhere.

It's the people's house.

It belongs to us.

And we are not going to have any violent insurrections like we had in 2021.

Yeah.

So anyway, we are, we the people and that's who matters.

So we are there to say, we're probably gonna each have a crown and we're gonna have our
Statue of Liberty.

We're gonna have uh a chicken soup because our representatives refused to meet with us at
this time.

We have asked them several times.

So those kind of nice visuals, optics.

So we're looking forward to, we've already got tons of signups that are coming in every
day.

and we'll have posters and such as that.

So everyone is invited and welcome.

now for your group, you will be in Tupelo, is that correct?

correct, one of our favorite spots, US representative, Trent Kelly, major general, Trent
Kelly, who took an oath of office to say, I uphold and defend the constitution of the

United States, not a billionaire.

So we are going to be in front of his office on the sidewalk, which is public property,
there at 431 West Main Street, downtown Tupelo.

And that's where we had our last one, but it's a great visual there on Main Street and
it's very appropriate since he is the one who is voting to cut all of these life-saving oh

budget items.

And what time do you want people to be there?

Jamie, what time are we telling people to show up?

10.30.

You have your donuts and coffee, sleep late?

10.30 till 12.

So it's an in and out, come on out, come on out.

We'll share that, we'll look on our Facebook page, we'll have an event page, a mobilized
link you can sign up for.

Another plug I need to make, as soon as we get through with that rally, we're gonna go be
in solidarity and support.

Juneteenth which is a celebration in Tupelo at Gumtree Park starting at three o'clock for
a parade four p.m to six is a family-friendly fun celebration.

There'll be another celebration on the actual Juneteenth holiday on Thursday the 19th so I
urge you all if you're a white person you need to go support it and be in solidarity.

Thank you.

mention was that June 14th is also Trump's birthday and he's having a big parade in
Washington DC for his birthday party.

Now one would normally expect that if the United States was going to have a parade, a
military parade, which we've never had before.

that at least we would do it on July the 4th.

But now we're going to do it on Mr.

Trump's birthday.

We don't like that optic.

We don't like it.

And it's also Flag Day.

It's also flag day, yes.

m And it's what kind of soup?

that's right.

That's right.

chickens out, which was written by and created by a financial expert who was responding to
the terror threats.

that is so funny.

I just love that.

ah

a wonderful, wonderful organization that is dedicated to educating the public.

I love that you're non-political.

However, I've noticed that at times you have endorsed candidates.

You have a process for endorsing a candidate.

Yes, sir.

We uh only endorse, we have to get approval from Indivisible for any partisan work we do,
which only happens with federal elections.

We do not do any, uh spend money on any state or local issues.

We can participate, we can vocally support.

Endorsements come when we submit a candidate that is promoting oh our ideals of a uh

justice and fairness for all in multiracial democracy.

ah When we get approval from the Indivisible National Group, because we adhere to Federal
Election Commission guidelines.

So if they're approved in a federal election, that's when we can endorse an endorsed
candidate who is approved by Indivisible.

We'll get like $1,000.

We'll get pushed out there in the media sphere.

ah And so that's another big plus.

For those that are wondering what happened to Jamie Rebicich, she's having issues with her
ah computer or cell phone.

So we're working on that.

Yeah.

And I want to say that, you know, um we, people, oh over eight years I've learned to talk
on camera, and, there are plenty of people who could get on here and do that too.

And leadership has developed and it would be a shame if it depended on one or two people.

So we spread leadership all around and rotate leadership.

So that's, that's really important.

longevity.

Have we missed anything?

How can people sign up?

Well, okay.

We do put out a weekly newsletter.

uh I did not know anything at all about it, but I learned MailChimp.

We now publish a newsletter every week on Sunday night telling you um the actions for the
week ahead.

What's going on?

It's short and sweet, always with a cartoon and a YouTube video.

So there's a sign up link there.

On Facebook, our Instagram and Blue Sky accounts look for Indivisible Northeast
Mississippi.

And there's a link there.

And I usually regularly post a way to sign up for the newsletter.

And that makes you a member and just show up.

Show up on June the 10th, 2025, 5.30 p.m.

at the link center.

Come around to the Douglas Street entrance.

You

don't know where the link center is, it's 1800 West Main.

David, come on down on Tuesday.

there's anything we missed or should have asked that we didn't.

got one more thing.

Okay, for people who want to be an activist or kind of want to see what's going on, but
you don't quite want to go public and you want to be in the privacy of your own home,

check for and look for on your phone or on the internet, five calls, five calls and dot
com.

There's an app you can download that's free.

You put in your zip code and it will tell you who you're.

elected representatives are.

Could anybody tell me, everybody on this call tell me who your senators are, who your
representative is, even locals, who your county supervisors are, it's on there.

And so it will tell you what you need to call your congressperson about and it tells you
which issue, is it Medicaid expansion, is it affordable healthcare, gives you a script to

follow and plugs you into the number.

of their office, you read the script and your call is uh tallied.

So that's one way to practice activism with an app, Five Calls.

think this has been a wonderful podcast.

I think the job that you all are doing in educating the public at the grassroots level
about local issues as well as national issues, but certainly issues that affect

everybody's life on a daily basis.

That is so missing in Mississippi and I suspect in a lot of other states.

And I, one, I'm grateful that you all are doing it.

And I wish you all the success in the world.

David.

Thank you.

DiEM's been a great supporter.

Jim, I, you know, usually Jim and I don't agree on everything, but this one, we, we agree
on everything that I agree everything that he just said.

So Mary Jane, thank you so much.

And to Jamie, thank her too.

And uh this has been good.

This has been good.

So I also want to say, I want to thank our sponsors and our subscribers.

do appreciate your continued support.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please contact us at
mississippyehappeningsthatgmail.com.

That's mshappeningsthatgmail.com.

We do appreciate you.

And also, may we never become indifferent to the suffering of others.

Thank you.

Thank you.