I wasn’t elected to be pushed to the back of the room and silenced. We who were elected to represent all Tennesseans — Black, white, brown, immigrant, female, male, poor, young, transgender and queer — are routinely silenced when we try to speak on their behalf. Last week, the world was allowed to see it in broad daylight.
In such a hostile environment for democracy, I’m inspired by the late civil rights fighter and congressman John Lewis, who in 1965, when demonstrating for voting rights in Selma, Ala., endured a police beating that almost took his life. In 2016, after the tragic Pulse Nightclub massacre that killed 49 people, he led a sit-in on the U.S. House floor for 25 hours to protest the inaction of lawmakers in the pockets of the National Rifle Association.
My mother, a schoolteacher, and my father, a pastor, instilled in me the hope that justice is possible for all. When I was 15, I attended a Memphis City School Board meeting with my parents to give a speech demanding access to quality textbooks and classes that white peers in their school districts had. These were resources that increased their opportunities for a good college education — chances that Black students, too, deserved.
A few years ago, I helped lead a coalition of community activists in the fight against the construction of the Byhalia Connection crude oil pipeline project in my late grandmothers’ community in southwest Memphis, where, according to a 2013 study, the risk of cancer is four times higher than the national average. Both of my grandmothers died from cancer. Our coalition killed the project before it killed more of us. We fought and we won.
Unchecked gun violence, environmental racism and denial of basic health and human services should enrage us all, and compel us to action.