Justin J. Pearson first came on my radar back in 2023. You might remember when he and two other Tennessee state representatives (dubbed “the Tennessee Three”) were expelled from the House for participating in a demonstration on the House floor in favor of gun reform laws. It became a national story for the brazenness of the expulsion and the underlying racial motivations that were impossible to ignore.
Fast-forward three years, and Pearson is now a Democratic congressional candidate in a district recently redrawn thanks to a new voting map that turned a majority-Black district into one that’s now one-third Black. That same district is also being upended by Elon Musk’s sprawling new data centers being built near historically Black neighborhoods.
So once again, Pearson has found himself at the heart of one of the nation’s most consequential fights, which is why I wanted to bring him onto More To The Story. We talked about how his state is being transformed as the midterms approach and why it’s so important to focus on what’s happening on the ground in places like Tennessee. Because as Pearson tells me, “the litmus test for America’s future is what happens in the South.”
—Al Letson
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