correction
A previous version of this article gave the incorrect age for Rep. Justin Pearson. He is 28, not 29. This article has been corrected.
The three lawmakers have been dubbed the “Tennessee Three.”
They joined protesters at the Tennessee Capitol on March 30 to demand that lawmakers pass gun-control legislation, bringing a House session to a halt. Jones shouted “No action, no peace!” and held a sign reading: “Protect kids, not guns.” Pearson spoke through a megaphone and chanted “Enough is enough!” about gun violence.
In a historic act of partisan retaliation on Thursday, Jones was ousted in a 72-25 vote and Pearson in a 69-26 vote. Johnson survived the expulsion vote. Two-thirds of the House must vote in favor of expulsion for the measure to take effect, according to the state constitution.
The decision has ignited fierce partisan debate across the nation, as well as allegations of racism in the disparate treatment of Jones and Pearson, who are Black, compared with Johnson, who is White. President Biden labeled the expulsions “shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent.” On social media Friday, the hashtag #TennesseeThree was trending across Twitter as people pledged to stand with Jones, Pearson and Johnson.
Here’s what we know about them.
Who is Justin Jones?
Jones is a 27-year-old community organizer elected to Tennessee’s House in November for his first term and one of the state’s youngest legislators. He is of Black and Filipino descent and received a political science degree from Fisk University, a historically Black liberal arts college in Nashville. He is studying theology as a graduate student at Vanderbilt University, according to his campaign website.
Born in Oakland, Calif., Jones describes himself as an activist and community organizer who has advocated for the “expansion of health care in Tennessee, the repeal of restrictive state voter ID laws, and community accountability in cases of police brutality.” Jones says he has been arrested over a dozen times for nonviolent protests, including a 62-day sit-in outside the Tennessee Capitol following the death of George Floyd in 2020. In an interview with Teen Vogue last year, he called for reparations to be paid to break the “cycle of plantation politics” in the United States and described slavery as one of “America’s original sins.”
Jones has spoken of participating in a sit-in in Congress with Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights leader and Georgia Democrat who died in 2020. In an interview with the Tennessean newspaper last year, he called that action a “transformative moment” for him in seeing an elected official battle for “common-sense gun legislation” in the wake of the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando.
In 2019, Jones was temporarily banned from the Tennessee Capitol after throwing liquid at state Rep. Glen Casada (R) while demanding the removal of a bust of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan, the Associated Press reported. The bust was later removed. Casada agreed to drop the charges later that year, the Tennessean reported.
Discussing why he joined protests at the Capitol last week, Jones tweeted: “There comes a time when you have to do something out of the ordinary.” He also called his expulsion so soon after the Nashville mass shooting “morally insane,” adding: “What’s happening in Tennessee is a clear danger to democracy all across this nation.”
Who is Justin Pearson?
Pearson, 28, is a community organizer and environmental campaigner from Memphis. He was elected in January 2023 and caused a backlash when he wore a dashiki to be sworn in.
He is one of five sons born to teenage parents in Memphis, according to his official website, and graduated from Mitchell High School as valedictorian and Bowdoin College in 2017, majoring in government, legal and education studies. Pearson started his social justice advocacy early while still in high school, demanding textbooks from the local board of education and becoming a prominent member of the debate team.
An environmental campaigner, he founded the Memphis Community Against Pollution grass-roots group and went on to help stop a multibillion-dollar crude oil pipeline from running through Memphis, a project that he said would have impacted local drinking water.
Pearson has accused Tennessee of “suffering from a lack of compassionate legislators” and said it needs better laws to help working-class people, small-business owners and communities. “The well-connected and powerful are misusing their power to whittle away our civil rights and our values of respect, integrity, transparency and honesty,” he said.
Despite being ousted this week, he said he was determined to continue fighting, tweeting: “We will not stop. We will not give up! We will continue working to build a nation that includes, not excludes, or unjustly expels. People power will always prevail!”
Who is Gloria Johnson?
Johnson, 60, is a former teacher from Knoxville who lost a student to gun violence.
Born in Colorado, she moved with her family to California and then to Mississippi for her father’s work as an FBI special agent, according to her official website. They returned to Tennessee when she was in seventh grade. She later attended the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, earning a degree in education.
Johnson spent 27 years working as a teacher, educating special-needs children before retiring and embracing her “passion for politics.” She worked as a community organizer for the 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama and was elected Knox County Democratic Party chairwoman in 2009 and 2011.
In 2012, she successfully ran for the state House “to give a needed voice for students, teachers and working families in Tennessee.” She remains an advocate for education and affordable health care and was endorsed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
Known as an outspoken legislator, Johnson once moved her desk into a hallway to protest being assigned a small office, which she contended was in retaliation for not voting to reelect the Republican House speaker.
Asked by reporters why she thinks she survived the expulsion vote this week while Jones and Pearson did not, she replied: “I’ll answer your question — it might have to do with the color of our skin.”
