Yesterday the racist Republican-led legislature of the State of Tennessee voted to expel three Democratic state legislators for mounting a gun reform protest in the House chamber. This came only ten days after a shooter killed six people, three children and three adults, in a school in Nashville, the state capital. The House expelled Rep. Justin Jones, the Democrat representing Nashville, and Rep. Justin Pearson, the Democrat representing Memphis. However, the vote to expel Rep. Gloria Johnson, the Democrat representing Knoxville, failed.

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Why were two Representatives expelled and not the third? As Gloria Johnson put it herself, the difference was “skin color.” Jones and Pearson are Black, and Johnson is white. As a former civil rights investigator, I see that as a prima facie case of racial discrimination. Not to mention the fact that all three were exercising their Constitutionally protected right of free speech.

Hundreds of protestors, many of them teenagers, who had gathered at the state capitol building, outside the House chamber doors and inside the chamber in the galleries to witness the vote, yelled and chanted in support of the expelled legislators. According to the newspaper the Tennessean, two protestors unfurled a handmade banner reading, “Rural TN Against Fascist GOP,” which was ripped down by a Republican legislative staff member. (For my readers from around the world, the GOP is the Republican Party.)

The entire procedure was a travesty and, in my view, an attempt to subvert democracy. Two Representatives, duly elected by the people of their districts, were summarily removed from office after mounting a protest that was supported by their constituents. A protest against gun violence which is rampant in this country.

It remains to be seen what will come next, but Johnson has promised to support her two colleagues and to continue the fight to pass common sense gun laws in Tennessee.

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