Over 1,000 Mississippians protest COVID vaccine mandates at Capitol. ‘This is tyranny.’
Fresh off organizing a thousand-plus person rally against vaccine mandates in Pascagoula on Friday, Ingalls employee Justin Bryant and his wife on Saturday morning took three-hour drive north to Jackson to again protest with hundreds of other Mississippians.
“I disagree with the mandate. First it was, you couldn’t go to football games, you couldn’t go to restaurants without the vaccine, and now it’s you can’t make a living without the vaccine,” he said. “We’ve got the largest employer in the state on the Coast, we need to show our support.”
The rally, attended by a handful of Coast residents, featured speeches from organizer Dr. John Witcher — a Yazoo City emergency room physician whose medical license was once revoked in the state — along with a number of streamed talks from national and international anti-vaccine advocates.
About three blocks over, another Rally for Medical Freedom was held by Mississippi Parents for Vaccine Rights at Sillers Pedestrian Mall across the street from the Capitol. With an estimated 1,400 people in attendance, an event volunteer told the Sun Herald that around 30 Coast residents had signed in, some of which were Ingalls employees.
Included in that rally was Ocean Springs resident Loree Lane, 65, who woke up at 6 a.m. Saturday to make the trip with her friends and Moss Point residents Lori Grayban, 54, and Lori’s mother, Dorothy, 83, up to Jackson after going to the Pascagoula rally on Friday.
“It’s been a big weekend for freedom... It’s tiring. I’m 65 years old, but I’ve got to fight. I was getting so depressed with everything that was happening in this country. So on 9/11, by myself, I got dressed and was out in front of an Ocean Springs Rouses and I waved my flag from 8:30 to 6 o’clock that evening by myself,” Lane said.
“People need to stand up for our rights before it’s too late.”
The women had “Hold the line” signs in Jackson along with other banners from the protest outside the Ingalls Shipyard entrance.
“On our way up, we saw other people from the Gulf Coast with signs from yesterday. They honked and waved at us,” Lane said.
The rallies come as a vaccine mandate for federal workers by early December has upset some Mississippi residents, especially those at Ingalls Shipbuilding, one of the largest federal contractors and state employers.
“Yesterday, we went to support because my dad used to work in shipbuilding. He passed two and a half years ago,” said Lori Grayban. “This is tyranny. We live in the United States. It’s the home of the free and the land of the brave. Thankfully I’m not in a position where I’d have to choose between a paycheck and a vaccine.”
“These are the first protests I’ve ever been to.”
Misinformation at the rallies
Speakers at both Jackson rallies touched on inaccurate vaccine information and used common conspiracy terminology about technology entrepreneur Bill Gates, philanthropist George Soros and vaccine passports — which have not been proposed in Mississippi — among other topics, like the shots’ intent for “total annihilation of the human race.”
The vaccine has proved lifesaving and effective against COVID-19. During the recent delta variant wave, around 98% of COVID hospital deaths were among the unvaccinated.
There was also discussion and signs about alternative COVID treatments. Lane said she’s pressed her Ocean Springs primary care physician to get hydroxychloroquine if she was ever to contract COVID He’s wavered but indicated that he may prescribe it, though it has not been approved by the FDA as a coronavirus treatment.
“I asked him, would you give me hydroxychloroquine? He said no. The second time I went, he would give it to me, the third time, no, he wouldn’t give it to me unless I had the antibodies,” she said. “I’ve not had COVID, I’m just asking if I did, would he give it to me. He’s changed his mind three different times in a year.”
In Biloxi, at a health disparities conference in August, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said the Coast’s main difficulty when administering more vaccines to lower COVID cases was warding off misinformation.
Rally attendees often chanted “Fire Dobbs,” a slogan introduced during the summer by state Rep. Steve Hopkins, R-Southaven, following the health officer’s condemnation of disinformation in the state.
“Our biggest challenge has been so many people’s minds have been poisoned with disinformation, it’s hard to supplant that with the truth; with reality,” said Dobbs in an interview with the Sun Herald. “People just need to pay attention to what is really going on, and for heaven’s sake, please do not get your news from social media.”
He instructed South Mississippians to stay away from social media for the bulk of their COVID information, where certain fringe medical professionals and other commentators can gain large followings with few credentials.
“The source is important…They are experts, that’s where you get the information. Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, M.D. Anderson, the same places that you would go if you needed a second opinion for cancer or Alzheimer’s disease,” Dobbs said.
“If you want to get your heart fixed, who do you go to? A cardiologist. So if some wacky, retired foot doctor tells you that heart medicine doesn’t work, are you going to listen to him?”
MaryJo Perry, president of the nonprofit Mississippi Parents for Vaccine Rights, asked how many rally attendees had been shadow-banned, or kicked off Facebook for sharing (inaccurate) vaccine information. About a third of the crowd raised their hands.
Lane said she’s been off Facebook for about six months, though she used to get most of her information from the site. Now she mostly uses messenger apps.
“I’m not on Facebook at all anymore because they’ve censored my free speech. The last time I was censored was for 30 days, and it was because I posted a doctor from overseas talking about the vaccine. When I posted that, they immediately shut me down,” she said.
Lori Grayban said she has also run into censorship problems on Facebook, and mostly uses Telegram now, another messenger app.
Mandates prove problematic
More than the vaccine itself, rally speakers appealed to the audience’s conservative, Christian ideologies and warned against the government’s infringement of individual liberties by mandating shots.
“No politician, bureaucrat, doctor, employer or any other entity should have the power to coerce an American to submit to a medical procedure they are medically opposed to. Reducing Mississippians to second-class citizens for non-compliance to top-down government demands is immoral, abusive and un-American,” said Perry.
“Those who violate the religious liberty of Christians will be held accountable to God.”
The first vaccine mandate in the U.S. was enacted in 1809 for smallpox, and the Supreme Court first upheld a vaccine law in 1905, Georgetown University professor of global health law Lawrence Gostin told NPR.
Reps. Hopkins and Dan Eubanks, R-DeSoto County, spoke at the rally on behalf of the Mississippi Freedom Caucus — a five-member, far-right faction of the statehouse.
“When the government can’t force you and coerce you into it, and your employer can’t coerce you and force you into it, the next thing that they will motivate will be your faith community,” Eubanks said.
“You guys have seen Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, those bastions of Christian morality, preach to you about loving your neighbor — that God wants you to go get your shot... that is a perversion of scripture.”
Many faith leaders across the U.S. are saying no to religious exemptions for coronavirus vaccine requirements, the Associated Press reported. “Leaders of Islam, Judaism and major Christian religions say vaccination is consistent with their belief systems.”
This article and live event is supported by the Journalism and Public Information Fund, a fund of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation.
This story was originally published October 11, 2021 at 5:50 AM.
