Tennessee Rep. Justin J. Pearson on returning to ‘toxic’ legislature, preserving his mental health

“These systems of oppression will always seek to tear us down,” Pearson, a member of the Tennessee Three, told theGrio during a sit-down interview.

After recently being reinstated to his seat in the Tennessee House of Representatives, Rep. Justin J. Pearson is more determined than ever to fight against gun violence and advocate for racial justice in spite of the Republican opposition that expelled him a week ago.

“What we have witnessed in Tennessee is some of the most anti-democratic behaviors of the Tennessee Republican Party and anti-democratic behavior in the United States of America,” Pearson told theGrio in a recent interview.

Pearson along with Democratic State Reps. Justin Jones and Gloria Johnson were brought up on expulsion charges on April 6 after they joined anti-gun violence demonstrators – comprised of mostly schoolchildren – inside the state capitol. 

Pearson, 28, and Jones, 27, were expelled by the mostly white male, Republican-majority House, while Johnson, a 60-year-old white woman, managed to avoid expulsion by just one vote. 

Together, the three lawmakers now known as the Tennessee Three have inspired a national movement that intersects issues of gun violence, race in the South, and what they say is a majority rule that threatens American democracy. 

“We are witnessing the resurgence of a movement for justice led by young people in college, led by teenagers, led by high schoolers who are saying that the status quo is not working,” said Pearson.

While the young activist-turned-politician acknowledges that he and his colleagues in the state legislature “have a responsibility as elected officials to do something” about gun violence, he also understands that he is walking back into a state House that has and will likely continue to be resistant to change. 

“It is a culture that silences the voice of the minority,” explained Pearson. “It limits debate on bills. It prevents people from being recognized in the elevation of our issues and stops us from being able to meaningfully, at times, represent the voice of our constituency.”

But the coalition of advocates who have marched to the state capitol in the thousands – as well as countless others who have stood in solidarity with the Tennessee Three from across the country – is what Pearson believes will penetrate the wall of opposition held up by Republican lawmakers and gun rights lobbyists. 

“Our Republican-controlled legislature does not yet know what to do when a 60-year-old white woman fights alongside two young Black lawmakers,” he argued. “It does not yet know what to do with that when you’re building solidarity that institutes in itself a multiracialism, that institutes within its principles and its values, diversity and inclusion, and recognizes that the struggles of one group are the struggle of all groups.”

Pearson said he and stakeholders are collectively working to build a “new Tennessee” and a “new South.”  

The young lawmaker, who represents Tennessee’s District 86 in Memphis, comes from a city steeped in a rich history of civil rights and activism. Before his 1968 assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to Memphis to protest alongside sanitation workers who were on strike for better wages and work safety conditions. 

A day after delivering a speech advocating for economic justice for a majority of Black workers, King was shot and killed on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. 

“Dr. King [said] … the movement lives or dies in Memphis. And I believe that when he spoke those prophetic words, they did something in the universe and that those words still remain true,” Pearson told theGrio. “In Memphis, there is a movement that is burgeoning.”

He said that the movement spans from working to end police brutality in the aftermath of the “unfortunate murder” of Tyre Nichols by Memphis police to tackling environmental justice and “reclaim[ing] our democracy and our First Amendment rights.”

But any movement of protest and resistance comes with its side effects, particularly its impact on one’s mental health.

When asked how he preserved his mental health in the face of being chastised and expelled by his white Republican colleagues, Pearson said it was the support of his fiancée and family that got him through. He also credited the benefit of having a therapist. 

“It’s just a part of my life, and it’s really important that we do that because these systems of oppression will always seek to tear us down,” said Pearson, who described the state legislature as “the most toxic work environment I have ever seen, witnessed or been a part of.”

But even having access to a therapist and good healthcare is something Pearson acknowledges is a “privilege” not afforded to everyone. Still, he emphasized the need for Black Americans to prioritize their health holistically.

“We have to take care of ourselves, and that definitely includes taking care of our mental health, our physical health [and] our spiritual health,” he said. 

Looking ahead, Rep. Pearson said he is looking forward to helping build a new Tennessee and nation where citizens, especially young people, are no longer traumatized by the threat of gun violence and injustice.

“Even in places and at a time where it doesn’t seem like we can make progress on these laws and these policies, new laws and policies are coming,” he said optimistically. “But we have to remain steadfast because this is our time, this is all of our country and we all have a stake in it and its future.”

Gerren Keith Gaynor is the Managing Editor of Politics and White House Correspondent at theGrio. He is based in Washington, D.C.

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