Two black Democrats ousted from the Republican-led Tennessee House will both return to the legislature after a committee in Memphis voted Wednesday to reinstate the second representative, nearly a week after his ban for supporting gun control protesters sent him into office. brought the national spotlight.

The Shelby County Board of Commissioners voted 7 to 0 to reinstate Justin Pearson as state representative.

I will continue to fight with and for our people, both in and out of the office. We and the young protestors are the future of a new Tennessee. Those who want to silence us will not have the last word, Pearson wrote in an op-ed published in The New York Times.

Republicans have Pearson and Rep. Justin Jones was evicted last week for their role in a gun control protest on the house floor following a shooting at a Nashville school that left three children and three adults dead.

The Nashville Metropolitan Council took just a few minutes on Monday to unanimously restore Jones to office. He was quickly restored to his seat in the House.

The appointments are interim and special elections for the seats will take place in the coming months. Jones and Pearson have said they intend to run in the special election.

The eviction that failed in Tennessee

The Houses vote to remove Pearson and Jones, but retain white Rep. Gloria Johnson made accusations of racism. Johnson survived by one vote. The Republican leadership denied that race was a factor

However

.

Last Thursday’s evictions made Tennessee a new front in the battle for the future of American democracy. In the space of a few days,

the two Pearson and Jones

had raised thousands of campaign dollars and the Tennessee Democratic Party had received another jolt of support from across the US

Political tensions rose as Pearson, Johnson and Jones on the House floor joined hundreds of protesters who filled the Capitol last month to call for gun control measures to be passed.

As protesters filled the galleries, lawmakers approached the front of the

House

room with a megaphone and participated in a chant. The scene took place days after the shooting at Covenant School, a private Christian school. Their participation from the front of the room violated house rules because the three did not have permission from the speaker of the house.

Support for Pearson comes from across the country and from his hometown of Memphis. At a Monday rally in support of Tire Nichols, who died in January after being beaten by police during an arrest, Pearson backers said the commission was timely.

You have a job reinstating Justin Pearson, said activist LJ Abraham.

Expelled State Representative Justin Jones is reinstated in Tennessee House

Ahead of Wednesday’s vote, Pearson led hundreds of people in a march from the National Civil Rights Museum to

the

district

commissions

office

S

in downtown Memphis.

Pearson grew up in the same House district he was elected to represent after longtime state Representative Barbara Cooper, a black Democrat, died in office. It winds past the neighborhoods, forests, and wetlands of South Memphis, through the center of the city, and into northern Shelby County.

Before being elected, Pearson helped lead a successful campaign against a planned oil pipeline that would have passed through neighborhoods and wetlands, and near wells that pump water from the Memphis Sand Aquifer, which provides drinking water to 1 million people.

He quickly earned a reputation as a skilled community activist and gifted public speaker.

Should

Pearson joins

S

Jones on his return to the Tennessee Capitol

they do that at the same time

then political divisions between the states some Democratic strongholds and the Republican supermajority

are

already at the

reaches

boiling point

for the evictions

.

GOP members introduced a wave of punitive proposals this year to take away autonomy from the Nashville city government. Others have called for the few states’ oversight boards that investigate police misconduct to be abolished and replaced instead with advisory panels that would be blocked from investigating complaints.

Tennessee’s House evicts two of three Democrats involved in gun control protests

Lawmakers are also approaching approval of a bill that would move control of the board of directors overseeing the Nashville airport from local appointments to selections by Republican government leaders.

Particularly when it comes to tackling gun violence, Republicans have so far refused to consider imposing new restrictions on firearms in the wake of the Nashville school shooting. Instead, lawmakers have designed advanced legislation to add more armed guards to public and private schools and are considering a proposal that would allow teachers to carry guns.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Cameron Sexton’s office confirmed this week that a Republican lawmaker was stripped of a top committee order more than a month after asking at a hearing whether hanging from a tree could be added to the state’s execution methods. The speakers’ bureau declined to give a reason for removing him from the committee.

Rep. Sparta’s Paul Sherrell was pulled from the Criminal Justice Committee and transferred to another, and was very pleased with the change, Sexton spokesman Doug Kufner said.

Sherrell, who is white, later apologized for what he said amid outrage from black lawmakers, who pointed to the state’s dark history of lynching. Sherrell said his comments were exaggerated to “show support for families who often wait decades for justice.”