Registering their dissent: Nearly 1,000 attend Women's March in Jackson [View all]

"827 going."

That was the number on the Women's March on Jackson Facebook event page when I checked it for the fifth time Saturday morning. It was after 9:30 a.m. and Dispatch photographer Luisa Porter and I were trundling down Highway 25 South on our way to take in the event.

"It was 700 something when I looked earlier this morning," I told Luisa.

But I was skeptical, switching between the event page and Twitter for news on other marches around the country -- could a march for women's rights in downtown Jackson, Mississippi, really draw more than 500 people?

At first it seemed the answer was no. As we arrived at the Capitol steps, I only saw a couple hundred. I met up with Rachael Damms, a Columbus resident who drove down with her younger brother Colin. They met their friend Philip Stoner, a Mississippi University for Women grad now living in Hattiesburg. They were munching on bagels and bananas and toting a homemade sign that said "FEMALES ARE STRONG AS HELL."

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