A clip has resurfaced of Justin Pearson, the Tennessee Democrat who was expelled from the House along with one other, of his days at Bowdoin College in Maine, expressing a very different sentiment than that of what he spoke during the vote for his expulsion.
In a 2016 video, in which Pearson was campaigning to be Bowdoin Student Government class president, the former Tennessee state rep outlined his reasons for running.
"One has to do with representation. How can we represent all voices in a conversation? I want to do this by partnering with organizations from the Bowdoin Democrats, to the Bowdoin Republicans. I want to bring together different voices, dissenting voices, voices that may be more liberal or more conservative, in order that we can reach a point of sort in the radical middle, where conversation and dialogue happens and growth happens," he said.
"Right now, we have tenstions on our campus that can only be resolved by understanding one another, and creating those forums and those spaces will be part of the legacy I hope to lead as BSU president."
This talk of reaching across the aisle and working together is not something that the modern-day Pearson appears to believe in, with Pearson likening his and Justin Jones’ expulsion to the events that lead up to Easter in the Bible.
"My savior, my black Jesus, he was lynched by the government on Friday, and they thought that all hope had been lost. The outside, it rained and thundered and everybody said everything was over and it was some black women who stood at the cross. There was some black women who watched what the government did to that boy named Jesus. they were witnesses as you have been witnesses to what is happening in the anti-democratic state of Tennessee."
"It got quiet on Saturday. Yes, I tell you it was a sad day on Saturday. Oh, hope seemed to be lost. Representatives were thrown out of the State House, democracy seemed to be at its end. Seemed like the NRA and gun lobbyists might win.
"But that was good news for us. I don’t know how long this Saturday in the state of Tennessee might last, but oh, we have good news, folks. We’ve got good news that Sunday always comes. Resurrection is a promise."
