Rep. Justin Pearson Recounts Clash With Troopers, Warns of ‘Autocracy’ in Tennessee

Tennessee State Rep. Justin J. Pearson (D) is no stranger to political confrontation. But as his Republican colleagues push forward with a congressional redistricting plan that critics say would dilute Black voting power, Pearson says what’s happening in his state is bigger than one viral moment or protest. 

“Tennessee is the lab rat for autocracy in the United States of America,” Pearson told The Root in an interview Tuesday. “What gets incubated in Tennessee then gets dispersed out to other places, particularly across the South.”

Last week, Pearson was involved in a tense confrontation with Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers after protesters were forcibly removed from the Capitol gallery during debate over redistricting maps. Pearson said he rushed upstairs after seeing troopers grab his older brother and supporters who had refused to leave.

“You can even hear it toward the end of the video where his supervisor is saying, ‘Let Rep. Pearson go!’” Pearson said.

He blamed House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) for the escalation. “The Speaker of the House does this. He oftentimes misuses and abuses his power to clear the gallery so that people aren’t able to bear witness and see what is going on,” Pearson said. 

The 31-year-old said Tennessee is ground zero in a larger national battle over democracy, race and political power.

“This racist redistricting is no different,” he said. “We’re the first state to do it. And now you see Alabama, Mississippi, other states sort of following the lead of Tennessee.”

Pearson warned the maps could strip Black Tennesseans of meaningful representation, threatening not only Memphis’ majority-Black congressional district but several majority-Black legislative seats in the future.

“Losing Black representation means losing perspectives, ideas, advocacy,” he said.

Over the last two years, Pearson and fellow Tennessee lawmakers like Rep. Justin Jones (D) have emerged as national faces of resistance politics in the South. The young, outspoken Black lawmakers have challenged their Republican supermajority in a state that is rapidly becoming a flashpoint in America’s culture wars.

Still, Pearson says he carries the weight of that responsibility with an extreme sense of gratitude, not fear.

“I stand on the shoulders of giants,” he said, invoking Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, Maya Angelou and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “This is our era. This is our civil rights movement.”