Tennessee Rep. Justin Pearson never guessed he'd be expelled for leading a gun control protest on the House floor after a deadly school shooting. Nor did he predict that he'd be propelled into the national spotlight, placing his state at the forefront of the conversation on gun regulations.
Activism had yielded results for years for the son of a preacher and a teacher. At age 15, he prodded a school board to get his Memphis high school more textbooks. After college, he fought a planned oil pipeline through wetlands and poor, predominantly Black neighborhoods in the city’s south. The project was canceled in 2021.
