"A Public Lynching": Justin Jones, Black Tennessee Lawmaker, Responds to Expulsion from State House

We speak with Justin Jones, one of two Black Democratic lawmakers expelled by a Republican supermajority in the Tennessee state House of Representatives Thursday for peacefully protesting gun violence in the chamber last week as thousands rallied at the Capitol to demand gun control after the Covenant elementary school shooting in Nashville. A vote to expel their white colleague who joined them in solidarity failed. “They thought by expelling us they would silence us, they would silence our movements that we’re part of, but in fact they’ve amplified it, because the nation can see how racist they are. The nation can see how retaliatory and absurd and authoritarian they are,” says Jones.

We also feature some of the dramatic exchanges that unfolded on the House floor, which Jones calls “a public lynching” targeting the two youngest Black lawmakers in the Legislature.