Justin J. Pearson (born 1994) was a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives (D-TN 86) from 9 February 2023 to 6 April 2023, succeeding Barbara Cooper.
Biography[]
Justin J. Pearson was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1994, and he was raised in Washington DC and Memphis. He was valedictorian of his high school class and became an environmental activist, preventing an oil pipeline from being constructed through poor Black neighborhoods in south Memphis. After the death of state representative Barbara Cooper in 2022, he ran for the State House and won the special election. Pearson introduced a bill to prevent police officers with criminal records from transferring across departments, and he was removed from his House committee assignments - and, on 6 April 2023 - expelled - for joining representatives Justin Jones and Gloria Johnson in participating in a gun control protest within the State Capitol following a school shooting in Nashville. In his last speech, he said that the Republicans in the chamber were made nervous by the state's increasingly diverse population and preached that resurrection was a prophecy which came from the cross on which "Black Jesus" was crucified and from the lynching tree, maintaining hope in the face of Republican authoritarianism.