An unnamed Republican lawmaker in Tennessee reportedly called Rep Justin Jones and another Black legislator “baboons” during the summer of 2020.
Mr Jones and another Black lawmaker, former Rep Justin Pearson, were expelled from the state legislature last week for joining gun violence protests in the wake of a mass shooting at a Nashville school.
Natalie Allison, a reporter who covered the Tennessee statehouse for The Tennessean for years, wrote in Politico on Saturday that a former Republican legislative staffer told her in 2020 that a member of House Republican leadership sent a text in which he referred to Mr Jones and another Black lawmaker as “baboons.”
Allison also reported that former Rep Brandon Ogles, who at the time held a leadership position in the Republican caucus, also recalled the legislative staffer speaking about the text.
Mr Jones, a graduate of Fisk College, was an activist at the time leading protests in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. One of the actions Mr Jones helped organise was a sit-in at the state capitol, during the course of which he was arrested. The charges filed against him were ultimately dropped.
Last year, Mr Jones, now a student at Vanderbilt Divinity School, jumped into the race to succeed outgoing Rep Mike Stewart to represent Nashville in the state legislature.
The revelation comes as Tennessee grapples with the fallout of the expulsion of Mr Jones and Mr Pearson for taking part in protests from the floor of the legislature following the shooting that left six people dead at a local Christian school. Another legislator, Rep Gloria Johnson, escaped expulsion by a single vote.
But Ms Johnson is a white woman, while Mr Jones and Mr Pearson are both Black men — a fact not lost on many observers who see the explosions as an anti-democratic expression of white supremacy.
Allison, in her Politico article, wrote that the events that led to Mr Jones and Mr Pearson’s expulsions were of “little surprise” to people who have followed Tennessee state politics in recent years.
“The place has been defined by partisan vitriol, pique, scandal, racism and Olympic-level pettiness for years,” Allison wrote of the legislature.
The battle over Mr Jones’ future is just beginning. The Nashville metro council voted unanimously to re-appoint Mr Jones to the seat opened by his dismissal, and he was sworn back in on Monday. He has already said he will run in the special election for the seat triggered by his expulsion set for later this year.
Mr Pearson, meanwhile, has not yet been re-appointed by local politicians in his hometown of Memphis — where Democrats reportedly fear that re-appointing Mr Pearson could lead to a loss of state funds needed to renovate the local basketball arena.
