The expulsion of two young black elected officials from the House of Representatives of the US state of Tennessee after they protested in the local legislature in favour of stricter gun control was denounced on Friday as racist and rekindled the not-so-old wounds of segregation in the US South.
The extremely rare measure, which the southern state’s House of Representatives applied to the two African-American Democrats but not to a third white elected official, was criticised as far away as Washington, where President Joe Biden called it “shocking” and “undemocratic”.
Vice President Kamala Harris made a last-minute trip to Tennessee on Friday to meet with lawmakers and young people advocating for tougher gun control laws, according to a tweet from her spokesperson, Kirsten Allen. She was also scheduled to meet with the "Tennessee Three" as the three legislators are now being called.
'It felt like a Jim Crow trial'
On 30 March, days after a shooting at a Christian school in Nashville, Justin Jones, Justin Pearson and Gloria Johnson joined hundreds of protesters on the House floor to demand stricter gun regulation. The protesters had entered the Tennessee Capitol to challenge elected officials meeting in session.
On Thursday, their Republican colleagues, who have a super majority in the House,voted to expel them.
“Yesterday it felt like a Jim Crow trial,” Jesse Chism, the vice chairman of the black caucus in the Tennessee Assembly, told a news conference on Friday, referring to the segregationist laws that were in effect in the South until the mid-20th century. Other commentators referred to the trial as a "political lynching."
'I am a 60-year-old white woman and they are two young black men'
Legislator Gloria Johnson, who narrowly escaped expulsion, said that for her the motives were clear. “I’m a 60-year-old white woman and they are two young black men,” she said.
Justin Jones and Justin Pearson delivered impassioned pleas against their exclusion, which earned them praise on social media, where a photo of the two 27-year-olds raising their fists went viral.
Jones added on the MSNBC TV channel that the Justice Department needed to look into the conditions of their exclusion.
