As they embraced on the dais at the Net­roots Nation con­fer­ence in Chica­go, twen­ty-sev­en-year-old Ten­nessee State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Justin Jones and eighty-one-year-old civ­il rights icon Rev­erend Jesse Jack­son some­how sym­bol­ized dis­tance trav­eled toward achiev­ing the Amer­i­can Dream, and the obsta­cles and entrenched resis­tance that remains.

The Rev­erend Jesse Jack­son meets Ten­nessee State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Justin Jones, to the delight of thou­sands of Net­roots Nation atten­dees (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

Jones and Demo­c­ra­t­ic col­league Justin Pear­son were expelled from the Ten­nessee State Leg­is­la­ture ear­li­er this year. They had joined demon­stra­tors call­ing for action on gun safe­ty after an assas­sin killed three peo­ple in a mass shoot­ing at the Covenant School in Nashville. When his micro­phone was cut off, Jones pulled out a bull­horn on the House floor.

“We love to go around the world talk­ing about democ­ra­cy, but we have no democ­ra­cy,” Jones told the crowd, adding: “We are the state where the Klan was born and their descen­dants are gov­ern­ing.” Of the state’s Repub­li­can rulers, he added: “They real­ly believe they are fight­ing the Civ­il War again.”

If leg­isla­tive lead­ers thought they were teach­ing two uppi­ty young African-Amer­i­can leg­is­la­tors a les­son, they in turn received one.

Jones, Pear­son and State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Glo­ria John­son – a white law­mak­er who sur­vived the expul­sion vote – became cel­e­brat­ed nation­al fig­ures. The “Ten­nessee Three” were received at the White House by Pres­i­dent Biden.

“We have bro­ken the sys­tem so peo­ple now say, our state is not some­thing to give up on,” said Jones. He gave Net­roots a cap­sule his­to­ry les­son. While Nathan Bed­ford For­est may have found­ed the Klan in Ten­nessee, the Vol­un­teer State played a major role in birthing the Civ­il Rights move­ment of the 1960’s.

Fisk Uni­ver­si­ty, Jones’ alma mater, was an ear­ly cen­ter of lunch counter sit-ins. The High­lander Folk School trained activists (includ­ing Rosa Parks) in non-vio­lent action. Justin Jones car­ried for­ward the tra­di­tion cam­paign­ing to have a bust of Nathaniel Bed­ford For­est removed from the State Capitol.

Of those who urged him to apol­o­gize, Jones reflect­ed Fri­day: “There are peo­ple who con­fuse prox­im­i­ty to pow­er with pow­er.” Mem­bers of the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Coun­cil of Nashville and David­son Coun­ty, who spurned Jones’ can­di­da­cy last year, vot­ed 36–0 to restore him to the Leg­is­la­ture, over­turn­ing the expul­sion. He is still offi­cial­ly an inter­im rep­re­sen­ta­tive and must run for his seat in a spe­cial election.

Jones described his state’s rulers as “fas­cists” and said “We do not have free.” The ger­ry­man­dered Ten­nessee Leg­is­la­ture has ignored gun leg­is­la­tion, vot­ing instead to restrict drag shows, vir­tu­al­ly out­law abor­tion care and ban gen­der affirm­ing health­care. Nashville no longer has its own mem­ber of Con­gress, but was split into pieces of three Repub­li­can-lean­ing U.S. House districts.

Rev­erend Jack­son, who suf­fers from Parkinson’s Dis­ease, came on stage in a wheel­chair. He has been engaged in civ­il rights work, Jack­son fig­ured Fri­day, for six­ty-four years and in 1968 was on the motel bal­cony in Mem­phis where Dr. Mar­tin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated.

Jack­son announced Fri­day that he is giv­ing up lead­er­ship of the PUSH-Rain­bow Coali­tion which he found­ed in 1996. “I’m not leav­ing, I’m step­ping over,” he said. “I’m going to teach young min­is­ters how to fight for justice.”

Ali­cia Garza inter­views Justin Jones at Net­roots Nation 2023 (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

His voice now soft, Jack­son led the crowd in chants famil­iar to those who cov­ered his 1984 and 1988 pres­i­den­tial cam­paigns: I am… some­body. Stop the vio­lence. Save the chil­dren. The chants were first heard when the young North Car­oli­na min­is­ter moved to Chica­go and began to chal­lenge the immov­able polit­i­cal machine of May­or Richard Daley.

When he first arrived in the Windy City, armed with a let­ter of praise from the gov­er­nor of North Car­oli­na, Jack­son went to see Hiz­zon­er. If you hus­tle your precinct and get out the votes, Daley told him, there might be a patron­age job wait­ing for you, like tak­ing tolls on the Chica­go Sky­way or the Dan Ryan Expressway.

Chica­go vot­ers recent­ly put an African-Amer­i­can may­or in office for the third time, a for­mer school teacher and Chica­go Teach­ers Fed­er­a­tion leader named Bran­don John­son, who spoke last night. Jesse Jack­son has helped send two sons to Con­gress. And a young com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­er who worked in the city, Barack Oba­ma, was elect­ed and reelect­ed the forty-fourth Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States.