Black Tennessee state lawmakers are rebuking Republican members of the state's House of Representatives who voted to expel two Black legislators over their protests following the mass school shooting in Nashville, saying the effort was rooted in racism.
Black Tennessee state lawmakers on Friday rebuked Republican members of the state's House of Representatives for voting to expel two Black legislators over their protests last week following a mass school shooting in Nashville.the GOP effort to remove two of their own from their seats"The world saw the optics," the caucus chairman, Rep. Sam McKenzie, a Democrat from Knoxville, told reporters Friday at a news conference in Nashville.
He predicted Jones and Pearson would be sent back to the state House by their constituents in upcoming special elections to be set by Republican Gov. Bill Lee. "This wasn't about one event," he said, pointing to the GOP's effort to defund the state's only historically Black college, Tennessee State University, and one lawmaker's proposal to bring back lynching.
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