Turmoil in Tennessee Makes Case for Multiracial Democracy
Justin Jones, one of two Black lawmakers in Tennessee ousted by the Republican majority, was reinstated on Monday to his position in the state House of Representatives by a unanimous vote of the Nashville Metropolitan Council. Jones and fellow Democrat Justin Pearson were both stripped of their seats after they led protests against gun violence in the wake of a mass school shooting in Nashville. Another Democrat, a white representative named Gloria Johnson, survived expulsion by one vote. The three lawmakers, known as the “Tennessee Three,” have faced accusations by Republicans of bringing “disorder and dishonor to the House.” They have countered that Republicans are distracting from their inaction over ongoing gun violence.
Lisa Sherman Luna, executive director of Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) Votes, and DaMareo Cooper, co-executive director of Center for Popular Democracy Action, spoke with YES! Racial Justice Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on Rising Up With Sonali about why the situation in Tennessee makes the case for building a multiracial democracy.
The views expressed here and on Rising Up With Sonali do not necessarily reflect the opinion of YES! Media.
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Sonali Kolhatkar
joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute’s Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (2023) and Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2005). Her forthcoming book is called Talking About Abolition (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women’s Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host” in her 2014 TEDx talk of the same name.
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