Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones (D-Nashville) said his race played a role in his expulsion from the state House on Thursday.
“I basically had a member call me an uppity Negro,” Jones, who is Black, told MSNBC’s Joy Reid after the 72-25 vote that expelled him.
“It’s not about me, but it’s about the 78,000 people I represent,” he added, noting his constituents would be disenfranchised because of his expulsion.
“These young people, one of the most diverse districts being silenced because they’re upset that we don’t fall in line to their narrative of what Tennessee should be and that is a multiracial democracy,” he said.
Jones and Rep. Justin Pearson (D-Memphis) were expelled from the Republican-controlled House on Thursday after being stripped of their committee assignments earlier this week for participating in a gun violence protest days after a mass shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville left six dead, including three 9-year-old children.
Both of the lawmakers who were expelled are Black.
Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville), who is white, also participated in the demonstration earlier this week but survived her expulsion vote. Johnson was also removed from her committee assignments.
Congressional leaders in Washington have rallied behind the lawmakers, who have become known as the Tennessee Three. Meanwhile, Black leaders including the Congressional Black Caucus and Rev. Al Sharpton have called out the overarching racial tones to Jones and Pearson’s expulsions.
According to Jones, he has also had members call him a disgrace, though he said they refused to say it on camera when he asked them.
“This is a very hostile environment, but more importantly, it’s hostile to democracy,” Jones told Reid. “And so what you see in there, they’re saying you should feel grateful to be here, but they didn’t help me get here, the people in my district put me here.”
“From the time I walked in in January, I was made to feel like I should not be welcome here because I’ve led protests here. I was arrested in this building over 14 times trying to remove a KKK statue that we finally removed from this rotunda where we’re standing,” he added.
”And so my colleagues on the other side of the aisle from the day I walked in, did not want me here, and today, they overturned democracy. They set a very dangerous precedent for the nation of expelling a duly elected lawmaker because of First Amendment activity.”
The former lawmaker made similar comments on “CNN This Morning” on Friday.
“What we saw in Tennessee yesterday was an attack on democracy and very overt racism, as you can see that the two youngest Black lawmakers were kicked out, but our colleague, my dear sister, Gloria Johnson, a white woman, was not,” he said. “And we see clearly, the nation has seen clearly what is going on in Tennessee.”
—Updated at 10:23 a.m.