Justin Jones
speaker
93 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard May 2025
last heard 21 Jan
Justin Jones’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jan 2026 with 1.
Appearances
I think my loyalty is to the movement. And so just this past election, some people who we recruited to run who won are my dear sister, Shondell Brooks, who lost her son in the Waffle House mass shooting, the first woman of color to represent her district, a powerful advocate for common sense gun laws. We were able to recruit. Even Democrats said someone like that could not win that district.
I said, we have to change the face of who is in power, who are in these halls. And so she won. We had our dear sister, Gabby Salinas, the first Latina member of the Democratic caucus to be elected. So we're changing the face of the party. bringing in people who are closer to the pain should be more proximate to the power, and changing the tradition of what it means to be a lawmaker.
And so that's what we're doing. I think that is where my loyalty is, too, is because I want to see people who are not doing it just for a title, but who are doing it who have the heart and who are willing to risk something, because that's what is required of this time. It's not to do something that's comfortable. Our democracy requires disruption.
People are disrupted, even with their mere presence, even with their mere story, to say that, hold on, we dissent. We offer an alternative narrative to your dominant narrative of fear and oppression. And I think that's what we have to do. And, you know, the other thing, too, is, you know, we've been able to raise money because we're not accepting these corporate PAC dollars.
The majority of people spend their time calling all these corporate PACs on the Hill. They have these big fundraisers with people who are against the interests of our constituents. I've rejected all that and just taken money from teachers and nurses and workers and everyday people. And so that's who I answer to. And I think that's what people want to see, that they want to see us not...
you know, compromise our values, but to say that we stand 10 toes down for them and that we're going to be consistent. And even I've had Republicans say, we disagree with you, but we know that when you say you're going to do something, you're going to be consistent and that you're going to be honest. And I think people want to see more authenticity in our politic. They want courage.
They want conviction. And they don't want this both sizes. And they don't want this, you know, we're facing a very dangerous time. And I think we won't be
for how bold we are in response, but we will be apologetic to future generations by how timid we are when our democracy is on fire, when the house is on fire, when things are collapsing all around us, we'll be apologetic for what we didn't do as opposed to what we did do. And so when I took a megaphone out of my pocket, was it in the quorum? Was it a violation of house rules? They say it was.
But I knew that I was required in that time because those children were saying, please do something, hear us, see us. And so when they expelled us, I also want to just end by saying it was not about us. It was about the people who showed up, mostly young people, who showed up in the largest number since the Civil Rights Movement, demanding better of our government.
Children and young people who can never unsee what they saw that day, who really transformed that place to a point where the Republicans ended session early because they were terrified of these young people. And they've now surrounded the Capitol in troopers. You have to have tickets to sit in the gallery. All these processes to keep the people at the people's house.
And the reason they're doing that is because that year those young people were effective. They were powerful. And power only responds when it's threatened. And so they knew that was effective. They knew that they're on the losing side of history. They've lost a generation. And so now they're trying to hold on to power. And as we say in the South, a dying mule kicks the heart.
It's this mule of white supremacist patriarchy and of terror. of plantation politics is dying, so they're trying to kick with everything they have to hold on to power, but we know that we're going to build a circle larger than they can even keep us out, and that we're gonna bring some of their folks in, and I really have hope in this season as I've traveled that something is happening right now.
People are being awakened. There's a reckoning happening, and I'm hopeful for 2028. I'm hopeful for 2030. I know that Tennessee's gonna shock the nation. I know that together, when I see a room like this, I know that as we show up, continually build community, I know that we can transform Tennessee, and if we can transform Tennessee, we can transform this nation.
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