(Jackson, Mississippi) A small group of AIDS activists set off on the weekend on a 10-day, 172-mile march from Jackson to Oxford, Miss. to draw attention to what they call a lack of government action on HIV/AIDS.

Organizers called on the next U.S. president to take significant steps toward creating a national plan to end AIDS within 100 days of taking office. Oxford, where the march ends,  is the site for the first Presidential Debate between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama.

The march is part of Stand Against AIDS. Eight auto caravans of HIV/AIDS activists from across the country will also convene in Oxford Sept. 23-26 to raise awareness for the need for increased funding and research to end AIDS. The 10-day march recreates the historic 1966 “Walk Against Fear” that mobilized the black vote.

“All these excuses today are no more. We aren’t going to accept them anymore,” said marcher Eric Bailey,  who has been HIV positive for seven years, to WAPT television.

In Mississippi, there are 600 new HIV cases each year. In 2006, more than 14,000 people nationwide died from AIDS.

“I consider this to be the most important thing since the Martin Luther King assassination,” civil rights activist James Meredith said at the onset of the march.

In 1962, Meredith became the first African-American student admitted to Ole Miss. Federal marshals had to escort him to his classes. He graduated in 1963 with a political science degree.

Meredith helped organize the march.

“This issue on AIDS, particularly in Mississippi, has to do only with the issue of the poor,” Meredith told WLBT television.

The Stand Against AIDS is being spearheaded by the Campaign to End AIDS, a national network of people living with HIV/AIDS. It is made up of a diverse cross-section of people – African American, Latino and white; gay and straight; and male and female.