Hundreds of "tea parties" took place across the country Wednesday. People not happy with the spending in Washington protested in the style of The Boston Tea Party. "TEA" stands for "taxed enough already".

It wasn't your typical tax filing day for a group of about 100 protesters in Meridian.

"We just need to get back our country," said Anita Quinnelly of Meridian.

The crowd gathered outside the Lauderdale County Courthouse and all wanted to make one thing clear: they're fed up.

"The only way I can see we turn it around is to get the American people to rise up like this group did today, come together and make it known in a respectful way that we want to live by our Constitution and we want members of Congress to live by the oath that they take," said Jimmy "Harry" Watkins of Newton, Miss., who was very vocal during the demonstration. "We're losing control of things that we are used to."

The national grassroots movement went from coast to coast. Many similar protests were held across the country, in big cities and small towns.

The protests are named after the 1773 Boston Tea Party in which disgruntled Americans rebelled against British colonial taxes. But fast forward to 2009 and these demonstrators are protesting against President Obama's big spending economic stimulus package.

Watkins was very vocal during the protest and says he's passionate about this issue and says there's too much spending and too much debt piling up will be on the backs on generations to come.

Watkins said despite what others think, this is not a Republican or Democratic thing, but an American thing.

"This grassroots movement is an American revolution," Watkins said.

As passersby honked their horns in support, leaders here said they are hoping to gain more community and regional support.

Supporters say with tea parties in more than 2,000 cities, the federal government has to listen.

Protesters say this won't be the end of it as they hope to make a bold statement with thousands, if not millions of people on Independence Day in Washington.