Standing in solidarity with the Tennessee Three

Last Thursday was a shameful day in the Volunteer State. Just days after six people — three of them only nine years old — were murdered in an elementary school, three Democratic lawmakers joined a group of protesters demanding their legislature act. Rather than listen and engage, the Republican supermajority in the Tennessee House of Representatives voted according to party lines to expel two of their colleagues from the chamber. It is not lost on me that, of the three legislators whose expulsion was brought to a vote, the two young Black men were expelled, while the white woman survived the vote. 

These men, state Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, represented majority Black districts in Nashville and Memphis, respectively. If made permanent, the expulsion would have left over 139,000 constituents without their duly democratically elected representation, leaving them disenfranchised and without a voice in their state’s legislative process. Over half of these constituents are Black. 

Thankfully, the Nashville Metro Council has voted to reinstate Rep. Jones, with Rep. Pearson’s reinstatement by the Shelby County Commission following soon after. The people have spoken and are continuing to speak. They want their voices heard in the halls of the Tennessee Legislature and they want the Tennessee Three to be the ones advocating for them. 

Jones, a graduate of Tennessee HBCU Fisk University, was the youngest member of the Tennessee House at just 27-years-old, and Pearson, at 28, was the second youngest. Both came to politics and service through community activism. 

I know their story too well as it is very similar to the path I find myself on. When I was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 2021, I became the youngest Delegate in our Commonwealth’s legislature and the first African American Delegate to represent the 79th district. I got my start in community activism after a KKK march on Monument Avenue in Richmond disrupted classes on my HBCU campus, Virginia Union University. And, like my brothers in Tennessee, I have fought for progressive policies for my constituents in majority Black cities — Portsmouth and Norfolk. 

I also know firsthand the skepticism with which many — not all, but many — people met my candidacy and service. Assuming I was too young, that I needed more life experience, that I needed to wait my turn. That my refusal to cede to corporate interests was the result of naivety rather than a deep-seated commitment to serving my community and my values. I know what it’s like to be a young progressive Black man trying to serve and speak truth to power.

There are so many ways that Black men are silenced and I am saddened and angry, but not at all surprised, that the Republican-led Tennessee legislature took this extraordinary step. But I also know that my brothers Reps. Jones and Pearson cannot and will not be deterred. They will continue to fight the obstacles put in their way. 

I stand in solidarity with them, their communities, and the brave activists who are quite literally fighting for their lives. We will not be silenced, and we will not be defeated. 

Nadarius Clark represented the 79th district in Virginia’s House of Delegates from 2022-2023.