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memphis
Trump Deploying National Guard to Memphis Called 'Cruel Intimidation Tactic'
“When military troops police civilians, we have an intolerable threat to individual liberty and the foundational values of this country,” said the head of the ACLU's National Security Project.
Sep 16, 2025
Leaders at the ACLU on Tuesday joined other rights advocates and elected Democrats in condemning US President Donald Trump's decision to deploy the National Guard to Memphis with a Monday order he signed beside Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.
“When military troops police civilians, we have an intolerable threat to individual liberty and the foundational values of this country,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, in a statement.
“President Trump may want to normalize armed forces in our cities, but no matter what uniform they wear, federal agents and military troops are bound by the Constitution and have to respect our rights to peaceful assembly, freedom of speech, and due process," Shamsi continued. "State and local leaders must stay strong and take all lawful measures to protect residents against this cruel intimidation tactic.”
While Lee expressed his gratitude to Trump for the order, some other elected officials in Tennessee have spoken out since Trump previewed his plans for Memphis on "Fox & Friends" last Friday.
The Associated Press reported on local opposition Monday:
“I did not ask for the National Guard, and I don’t think it’s the way to drive down crime,” Memphis Mayor Paul Young told a news conference Friday while acknowledging the city remained high on too many “bad lists.”
Young has also said that now the decision is made, he wants to ensure he can help influence the Guard’s role. He mentioned possibilities such as traffic control for big events, monitoring cameras for police and undertaking beautification projects.
At a news conference Monday, some local Democrats urged officials to consider options to oppose the deployment. Tami Sawyer, Shelby County General Sessions Court Clerk, said the city or county could sue.
State Rep. Justin Pearson (D-86), whose district includes parts of the city, declared, “We need poverty eradication, not military occupation!”
Denouncing Trump's targeting of Memphis on MSNBC, Congressman Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) said that "having the National Guard here is unnecessary and it is a stunt. It's just a Trump show, to show his power and his force."
"I think this may be the first representation of his changing the Department of Defense to the Department of War, because he likes to put the National Guard at his direction, as his being the great warrior, into cities and going to war," he added.
According to a White House fact sheet, Trump's memorandum tasks Secretary of War Pete Hegseth with requesting Lee "make Tennessee National Guard units available to support public safety and law enforcement operations in Memphis," and further directs Hegseth to "coordinate with state governors to mobilize National Guard personnel from those states to support this effort."
The order also "establishes a Memphis Safe Task Force tasked with ending street and violent crime in Memphis to the greatest possible extent, including by coordinating closely with state and local officials in Tennessee, Memphis, and neighboring jurisdictions to share information, develop joint priorities, and maximize resources to make Memphis safe and restore public order."
🪡Governor Bill Lee, Senator Marsha Blackburn, Rep. David Kustoff, and Sen. Brent Taylor have chosen fear-mongering and authoritarianism over real solutions. They voted to gut healthcare and food security from Memphians. Sending troops will not fix the failures they created.
— Indivisible Memphis (@indivisiblememphis.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 10:19 PM
Trump has already deployed the National Guard to Washington, DC, and Los Angeles, California, and threatened to do so in Chicago, Illinois, where his deadly "Operation Midway Blitz" targeting immigrants is already underway.
"Expanding military involvement into US civilian law enforcement is dangerous and unwarranted," Tanya Greene, US program director at Human Rights Watch, said Tuesday. "The Trump administration's continued deployment of military forces in cities with populations primarily comprised of people of color, like Memphis, risks exacerbating violence against immigrants, unhoused people, and poor people in general."
"While communities desperately need food, affordable housing, and healthcare," she added, "hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are being squandered on these deployments."
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Reappointed Justin Pearson Vows to Fight on Against Tennessee GOP That Expelled Him
"The message for all the people in Nashville who decided to expel us: You can't expel hope. You can't expel justice. You can't expel our voice. And you sure can't expel our fight," the representative declared. "Let's get back to work."
Apr 12, 2023
This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates...
The Shelby County Board of Commissioners voted Wednesday to reappoint Democratic Rep. Justin Pearson to represent District 86 in the Tennessee House of Representatives nearly a week after Republican lawmakers expelled him and Rep. Justin Jones over a protest demanding stricter gun laws.
Pearson's reinstatement—following a prayer by his father, a pastor—came after the Nashville Metropolitan Council voted unanimously Monday night to reappoint Jones (D-52). While the GOP-controlled House expelled both young Black lawmakers, the resolution to oust Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-13), who is white and also joined the protest, narrowly failed.
"Nashville thought they could silence democracy. But they didn't know the Shelby County Commission was filled with some courageous leaders," Pearson said in a speech after his reappointment, highlighting that the board's 7-0 vote came in spite of alleged threats to reduce state resources to the region. Six of the 13 board members were not present for the meeting, including the four Republicans.
\u201cJust a colossal miscalculation from Tennessee Republicans. \n\nThe only thing they accomplished by expelling two members was 1) grow the members\u2019 warchests and audiences and 2) draw intense scrutiny on the @TNGOP\u2019s recent history of racism and corruption.\u201d— Kyle Tharp (@Kyle Tharp) 1681325543
Wednesday's vote shows that "we do not speak alone, we speak together; we fight together," Pearson declared.
"And so the message for all the people in Nashville who decided to expel us: You can't expel hope. You can't expel justice. You can't expel our voice. And you sure can't expel our fight," he added. "We look forward to continuing to fight, continuing to advocate, until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like an everflowing stream. Let's get back to work."
\u201cOn the road back to Nashville from Memphis.\n\nThe people of District 52 and 86 have representation again, but make no mistake\u2014democracy is still in crisis in Tennessee.\n\nWelcome home, brother. The Tennessee Three will be back in the PEOPLE\u2019S HOUSE! @Justinjpearson @VoteGloriaJ \ud83d\udcaa\ud83c\udffe\u201d— Rep. Justin Jones (@Rep. Justin Jones) 1681341283
Jones tweeted Wednesday that "the people of District 52 and 86 have representation again, but make no mistake—democracy is still in crisis in Tennessee."
Ahead of the vote to send him back to Nashville, Pearson—joined by Johnson and Jones—addressed a crowd at the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, before marching to the Shelby County Commission meeting.
\u201cWe are marching to the Shelby County Comission with the people. People Power is greater than any power that attempts to suppress it!\u201d— Justin J. Pearson (@Justin J. Pearson) 1681323173
Pearson also wrote Wednesday in a New York Times opinion piece that "it's not just our individual voices that were sanctioned and silenced last Thursday. It was the voices of the nearly 135,000 Tennesseans we represented—many desperate for protection from the absence of many commonsense gun safety laws in our state."
Pearson noted that "since the Covenant School shooting, the Republican supermajority in the state House has done little but advance a bill that would allow teachers to carry guns in school and propose a $140 million budget increase to pay for the presence of armed guards in public schools, further militarizing them without adequate evidence that this makes schools safer."
"Besides expanding already expansive gun rights, Republican-led statehouses across the country are proposing and passing staggering numbers of bills that serve a fringe, white evangelical agenda that abrogates the rights and freedoms of the rest of us," he added, pointing to GOP attacks on trans children, the social safety net, abortion access, and voting rights.
\u201c"We have a nation in pain and peril," writes @Justinjpearson.\n\n"We and the young protesters are the future of a new Tennessee. Those who seek to silence us will not have the final say." https://t.co/oxOzkUrkAe\u201d— Institute for Policy Studies (@Institute for Policy Studies) 1681308963
"I was elected early this year by the people of Memphis and Millington to stand up for all of us against encroachments on our freedoms. I will continue to fight with and for our people, whether in or out of office," Pearson vowed. "We and the young protesters are the future of a new Tennessee. Those who seek to silence us will not have the final say."
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) along with Sens. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) on Wednesday asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate whether the expulsions violated any constitutional rights of Jones, Pearson, or the Tennessee citizens they represent.
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Expelled Tennessee Democrat Says GOP Is Threatening to Cut Local Funding If He's Reinstated
"This is what folks really have to realize," said former state Rep. Justin Pearson. "The power structure in the state of Tennessee is always wielding against the minority party and people."
Apr 10, 2023
One of the Tennessee Democrats who was removed last week by the Republican-dominated state House said Sunday that GOP lawmakers have threatened county officials with funding cuts in an effort to deter them from voting to reinstate the expelled representative.
"I would be honored to accept the appointment of the Shelby County Commission," former state Rep. Justin Pearson said of the local body that is set to meet on Wednesday to decide who will fill the empty seat until a special election is held. Pearson told NBC News on Sunday that he intends to run in the special election triggered by his widely condemned expulsion, which stemmed from his participation in a gun control protest on the state House floor following a school shooting in Nashville.
The Memphis Democrat said he has "heard that people in the state legislature and in Nashville are actually threatening our Shelby County commissioners to not reappoint me, or they're going to take away funding that's in the government's budget for projects that the mayor and others have asked for."
"This is what folks really have to realize," said Pearson. "The power structure in the state of Tennessee is always wielding against the minority party and people."
Late last week, Shelby County Commissioner Erika Sugarmon told local reporters that members of the body are "being threatened by the state to take away funding, needed funding to run our schools, to run our municipalities."
"This is about bullying people into submission. And enough is enough," said Sugarmon. "We've got to stand for something or fall for everything. And we've been bullied by the state for too long now."
It's unclear whether Pearson has enough support among the 13 Shelby County commissioners to win reinstatement ahead of the coming special election.
Mickell Lowery, the chair of the commission, said in a statement Sunday that "the protests at the state Capitol by citizens recently impacted by the senseless deaths of three nine-year-old children and three adults entrusted with their care at their school was understandable given the fact that the gun laws in the state of Tennessee are becoming nearly nonexistent."
"It is equally understandable that the leadership of the state House of Representatives felt a strong message had to be sent to those who transgressed the rules," said Lowery. "However, I believe the expulsion of State Representative Justin Pearson was conducted in a hasty manner without consideration of other corrective action methods. I also believe that the ramifications for our great state are still yet to be seen."
"Coincidentally, this has directly affected me as I too reside in State House District 86," he continued. "I am amongst the over 68,000 citizens who were stripped of having a representative at the state due to the unfortunate outcome of the State Assembly's vote. Therefore, the Shelby County Board of Commissioners will consider the action to reappoint Mr. Justin Pearson to his duly elected position to represent the citizens in District 86 for the State of Tennessee House of Representatives in a special called meeting on Wednesday, April 12, 2023 at 1:30 PM."
Rep. Justin Jones, a Nashville Democrat who was expelled along with Pearson for showing solidarity with demonstrators on the state House floor, reportedly has the support of a majority of the Nashville Metropolitan Council members expected to convene Monday to vote on the removed lawmaker's reinstatement.
Jones warned last week that Tennessee House Republicans could refuse to seat him and Pearson if they are reappointed or if they win a special election.
In his NBC appearance on Sunday, Jones said the resounding national response to his and Pearson's expulsion makes clear that the Tennessee GOP's "attack on democracy will not go on unchallenged."
"The Tennessee House Republicans' attempt to crucify democracy has instead resurrected a movement led by young people to restore our democracy, to build a multiracial coalition," Jones said. "We will continue to fight for our constituents."
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