2nd lawmaker voted back into Tennessee House following expulsion for gun reform protest

One of two Black Democrats expelled from the Republican-led Tennessee House will return to the Legislature after a Memphis commission voted to reinstate him Wednesday, nearly a week after his banishment for supporting gun control protesters propelled him into the national spotlight.

The Shelby County Board of Commissioners voted 7-0 to reinstate Justin Pearson as a state representative.

"I will continue to fight with and for our people, whether in or out of office. We and the young protesters are the future of a new Tennessee. Those who seek to silence us will not have the final say," Pearson wrote in an op-ed published in The New York Times.

Republicans banished Pearson and Rep. Justin Jones last week over their role in a gun control protest on the House floor after a Nashville school shooting that left three children and three adults dead.

The Nashville Metropolitan Council took only a few minutes Monday to unanimously restore Jones to office. He was quickly reinstated to his House seat.

The appointments are interim and special elections for the seats will take place in the coming months. Jones and Pearson have said they plan to run in the special elections.

The House's vote to remove Pearson and Jones but keep white Rep. Gloria Johnson drew accusations of racism. Johnson survived by one vote. Republican leadership denied that race was a factor, however.

The expulsions last Thursday made Tennessee a new front in the battle for the future of American democracy. In the span of a few days, the two had raised thousands of campaign dollars, and the Tennessee Democratic Party had received a new jolt of support from across the U.S.

Political tensions rose when Pearson, Johnson and Jones on the House floor joined with hundreds of demonstrators who packed the Capitol last month to call for passage of gun control measures.

As protesters filled galleries, the lawmakers approached the front of the House chamber with a bullhorn and participated in a chant. The scene unfolded days after the shooting at the Covenant School, a private Christian school. Their participation from the front of the chamber broke House rules because the three did not have permission from the House speaker.

Support for Pearson has come from across the country, including Memphis. During a Monday rally in support of Tyre Nichols, who died in January after he was beaten by police during an arrest, backers of Pearson said the commission was "on the clock."

"You've got one job — to reinstate Justin Pearson," activist LJ Abraham said.

Ahead of Wednesday's vote, Pearson led hundreds of people in a march from the National Civil Rights Museum to the county commission's office in downtown Memphis.

Pearson grew up in the same House district he was chosen to represent after longtime state Rep. Barbara Cooper, a Black Democrat, died in office. It winds along the neighbourhoods, forests and wetlands of south Memphis, through the city's downtown area and into north Shelby County.