TN Rep. Justin J. Pearson's constituents need strategy, not emotional outbursts

Yahoo

31-03-2025

It's been two years since the mass shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, which claimed the lives of three students and three adults.
Following the tragedy, Tennessee state Rep. Justin J. Pearson, D-Memphis, has pushed tirelessly for gun reform − though his appeals, as well as those of likeminded others, have gone unheeded.
Sadly, in a devastating display of injury to insult, Pearson lost his brother to gun suicide at the end of last year.
He naturally missed the early part of this year's legislative session to grieve and deal with the fallout from his brother's death, including the arrangement of care for his young nephews. But last Wednesday he was back: back at the Capitol and back to his fight for commonsense gun control.
'We have the power to do something about the gun violence epidemic and we don't just have to offer some empty thoughts and prayers,' Pearson said after presenting a new bill that would end permitless carry of firearms.
Andrew Farmer, a Republican representative from Sevierville, took offense to Pearson's assertion that Tennessee's elected officials haven't been doing their jobs. 'I know every member in this committee has been here this year working during committee, during session, voting on bills,' he said. 'And I know you may have some things going on, but you have not.'
Pearson fired back, detailing how his family has been impacted by gun violence and how he, personally, has had to pick up the pieces. He was clearly, justifiably emotional.
But as his emotions continued to swell, and he rushed toward Farmer, jabbing a finger just inches from his face, Pearson's actions became impossible to justify ... Even if one could, ultimately, understand them.
Largely because of his gifted oratory (but also his adopted Afro and affinity for dashikis), Pearson has drawn comparisons to leaders of the 1960s Civil Rights movement. For the 30-year-old, this is high praise.
Pearson seems to have eagerly embraced these parallels, so I also consider the Movement a useful benchmark by which to measure his own effectiveness.
Consider: Before students were allowed to participate in the 1960 sit-ins that rocked downtown Nashville and lead to the city becoming the first in the South to desegregate public spaces, students had to train for a year with Rev. James Lawson. The students were taken through rigorous simulations designed to strengthen their psyche to withstand attacks both physical and verbal and weed out those who couldn't, or wouldn't, submit.
This process wasn't meant to strip away the dignity of those young activists, or to teach them how to cower when faced with disrespect.
Rather, Lawson and others understood that the best way to highlight the violence of the Jim Crow South, no matter how it manifested, was not to meet it blow for blow. It was to force it into the spotlight on its own, where it would stand naked and ugly for all to see.
Indeed, some of the Movement's biggest wins were achieved when people outside the South - who'd watched, horrified, as Southern whites heaped their unbridled hate upon people who refused to play along - decided to get involved.
Black folks may have been marginalized to second-class status in society, but on the matter of moral standing, there was no question who had the upper hand.
In the years following the Movement, there has been considerable debate about its effectiveness. This is fair, given the persistence with which Black people remain affixed to the lowest rungs of society. And even Movement participants have suggested that leadership may have given in too soon, granted too many compromises, and allowed for an individualized approach to reform that created wins for a few and catastrophic losses for the rest.
Yet for all its purported flaws, the strategy and tactics of the Movement are largely unimpeachable. Despite the reality that Black people had neither control of the levers of power, or the collective resources to influence them, Movement leaders were able to secure wins tangible wins for their people, however complete.
In 2025, as in 1960, the work on behalf of the most marginalized requires strategy. Tactics. Today, however, those tasked with doing this important work seem to be lacking it. It's evident in the news reports that broadcast the public's frustration with elected leaders who won't lead, who won't fight back.
And it's clear in the way Pearson lunged at Farmer last week.
Someone will read this as a plea for respectability, as a command for Pearson and others to smile and dance even in the face of oppression. But it's not that. It's a demand for a plan, for an approach that looks like something other than theater.
To truly serve the people − one's direct constituents as well as the wider community − is to be engaged in exhausting, thankless work. And it demands the intentional de-centering of self.
When ineffective, however, service looks like grandstanding and ego and little tangible benefit. The people, after all, cannot pay their bills with legislative shouting matches. They cannot secure access to quality education with intimidation and threats.
Neither can they protect their children from gun violence with viral social media clips, or a chorus of supportive replies.
The people who are pinned to the edges of society, where they dangle, perpetually, from humanity's cliff, need more. They need empathy. They need legislation. And an emotional outburst, however understandable, garners neither.
This isn't a critique of Pearson alone. The tendency to measure effectiveness by campaign donations and social media followers, or to conflate headlines with headway, isn't unique to one race, gender, political party, or even the state of Tennessee. This political pageantry, whether intentional or not, is everywhere.
But it's important to speak to Pearson's recent actions. It's important because it is the marginalized, to whom Pearson has pledged his devotion, who suffer most when emotions rule and the powerful are emboldened.
Civil rights leaders of the past weren't perfect; neither was their Movement. Yet at a minimum, they understood that desperate times called for strategic, intentional measures.
Andrea Williams is an opinion columnist for The Tennessean and curator of the Black Tennessee Voices initiative. She has an extensive background covering country music, sports, race and society. Email her at [e-mail] or follow her on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @AndreaWillWrite and BlueSky at @andreawillwrite.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee Rep. Justin Pearson needed to de-center himself | Opinion