State Rep. Justin J. Pearson spent his first years in elected office representing a district anchored by Memphis with roughly 72,000 people.
Now, after winning the Democratic nomination for Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District, Pearson is asking voters to send him to Congress from a district much different from the one where he once expected to run.
Tennessee’s newly redrawn congressional map split Memphis and Shelby County into three districts stretching into more rural and politically conservative parts of the state. Pearson is competing against Republican state Sen. Brent Taylor on Nov. 3 for District 9, which is roughly 200 miles long from Memphis to Middle Tennessee.
But after months traveling the district, Pearson said the experience has challenged assumptions that Memphis, a predominantly Black urban center, and rural Tennessee are separated by fundamentally different concerns.
Instead, he said, he keeps finding variations of the same problems: rising costs, inaccessible healthcare, stagnant wages, corporate control and communities that feel disconnected from political power.
In a Q&A with the Tri-State Defender, Pearson shares what voters across the district have told him about their concerns. He also discusses the potential power of rural Black voters, coalition-building across political lines, lessons from the Tennessee General Assembly and the attacks he expects as one of the country’s most recognizable, young progressive politicians.
The interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
TSD: You are coming out of the primary and now campaigning in parts of Tennessee you probably were not contemplating when you first considered running for Congress. What are you finding as you travel the new district?
PEARSON: I’ve got to be honest with you, I’ve had a great time traveling across the district and meeting all the new people. We’ve got shared problems and shared issues, whether it be data centers, lack of access to healthcare, people struggling financially and in need of increased wages and better jobs — a lot that they thought would divide us, along race in particular. Issue-wise, we are very shared and similar.
And I’ve been able to go to places in Tennessee that I’ve never been before and spend meaningful time with people who I’m fighting for the opportunity to represent. And that is what I’m going to have to do if we have the privilege to serve in the United States Congress: build relationships across all 15 counties, remain accessible and present for the people in the district.
Whether that’s 72,000 people in the Statehouse or 750,000 people across 200 miles, I’m going to give it everything that I’ve got to do that job well.
Traveling over these last few months here, we are more connected than we are divided. And I think the divisiveness, the hatefulness of my opponent and his campaign, is not what’s going to bring real solutions for people.
And that’s what we’re going to be bringing, real solutions.
TSD: There was a lot of attention on what redistricting did to Memphis. But it also disrupted districts farther out. Are you finding that the issues important to predominantly Black Memphis aren’t as different from rural Tennessee as people might assume?
PEARSON: Absolutely. The people who are in rural areas or urban or suburban areas are all struggling with the same systems that deeply impact people in Memphis and Shelby County.
What I’ve realized is the person who’s making $10 in Giles County, moving out in an apartment that’s just $800 a month, is struggling with the same private corporations and private equity firms as in Shelby County who are buying up the neighborhoods.
These aren’t disparate problems when it comes to the challenges that people are facing, because it’s the same systems rigged against everyday working-class people.
Before, in my campaign, I was focused, rightly so, on Shelby County and a little bit of Tipton County and the problems that we have. But with the district being stretched out, what I’m actually realizing is the farmer in Savannah is also running up against billion-dollar corporations who have a monopoly, such as John Deere or Monsanto.
Just like in Memphis and Shelby County, we’re up against billion-dollar corporations like SpaceXAI and Valero and TVA that are hurting and harming our communities.
And so what we have now is a significant opportunity to send a message to the billionaire class, the corporations and the out-of-touch career politicians, like Brent Taylor, that you thought you would be able to divide us by breaking up our districts and changing the trajectory of our state. But, instead, you’ve united us around our common causes, our common purposes.
And we’re going to take that to Washington, D.C., to change the systems that are deeply harmful to the people who are in this newly drawn district. The disruption isn’t leading to the destruction of the values and the needs that people still have, regardless of how they voted in the past.
TSD: You have already had experience building that kind of coalition. Before you were elected state representative, you helped lead the fight against the proposed Byhalia Connection Pipeline, which would have carried crude oil from southwest Memphis through predominantly Black communities and into North Mississippi. More recently, you have worked with communities on both sides of the state line over SpaceXAI. Has that experience prepared you for campaigning among voters who may look different politically from Memphis?
PEARSON: I’ve been fortunate to serve a diverse district in the Statehouse already. I represent some poor folks in parts of my district, and I have Harbor Town in my district, right? My Statehouse district stretches all the way up to Millington.
And so I have an ability to connect with people across race, across class, across differences already.
And the fight against the pipeline six years ago really helped me to build what author Heather McGhee called the aptitude for the “solidarity dividend,” which is when you get white folks and Black folks and richer folks and poorer folks together, you really create and can create transformational change. And that bedrock that was laid six years ago, that I’ve kept throughout my political career, is also being used now in this moment where we’re running to serve in Congress.
But without a doubt, helping to organize the resistance in North Mississippi with very different communities than Boxtown and Westwood is helping me in the community conversations that we have with people from Lawrenceburg, for instance, who are fighting their own multibillion-dollar data center, or people who are fighting their rock quarry.
We have the ability to find common ground without compromising our values. That’s the job of a good elected official. That’s the job I hope to do as a congressman — find common ground with people without compromising our values.
And just because we haven’t voted the same way in the past, if we’ve got shared values, this is the way we move into the future to make sure we move forward on those issues that we care about.
TSD: Shelby County is now split among three congressional districts. Do you see a possibility that the new map could actually help create a broader political coalition stretching across West and Middle Tennessee? Can Democrats run the table in Districts 5, 8 and 9?
PEARSON: Yeah. My goal is for every Democrat who’s in one of these broken districts to win — really every Democrat in all nine, but especially in these three, because Memphis and Shelby County is now the bedrock of each of these electoral positions.
And if we show up to the polls, we win.
The job is to get people in Shelby County to show up and vote. And if the people in Shelby County show up and vote, Democrats are going to run the table.
They built the maps based on old data. We’ve got to give them new data.
And that has to be an active and engaged electorate fighting for the future of our democracy, of our communities and for our rights. That’s what’s at stake right here and right now. And I think we can do it. We are in a particular moment where gas is high, groceries are high, medical bills are high, wages are stagnant, corporations are getting richer and wealthier, data centers are destroying us.
And we have a core message that appeals to the majority of people. And if we get that message out there, there’s no way we’re going to lose.
TSD: Every campaign has to run its own race, but are you coordinating with Chaz Molder’s campaign in District 5 and Heidi Kuhn’s in District 8?
PEARSON: Yeah, we’re talking with everybody and meeting with the Democratic Party as well to see what ways we can continue to coordinate resources, share resources, so that we can make sure we win this thing.
I don’t want us just to win this congressional race. I want us to win the County Commission races. I want us to win the Statehouse races. I want us to win all the way up and down the ballot.
TSD: One group you do not hear much about is the small-town, rural Black voter, particularly in this part of the state. Are you finding voters who are essentially saying, “We’ve been here the whole time — nobody has been talking to us”?
PEARSON: Absolutely. I mean, this is small-town, rural Black voters and small-town white voters as well, who no one knocks their door, no one holds town halls, no one comes to see them, meet them or greet them, because they don’t believe that’s where their time is best spent.
Whereas for me, that’s all I’ve been doing. I’ve been to all 15 counties more than once already in just three months, because I don’t want anyone to feel disconnected from power.
And I got that lesson from Dr. Barbara Cooper, my predecessor in House District 86, who always viewed her job as a conduit for power, never as the seat of power. And that meant you always had to be proximate to people in the district.
But there are a lot of rural Black voters in West Tennessee who we had not tapped into before. Look at Fayette County, where I think there was a 9% increase in turnout, specifically from Black rural voters, because we’re going there. We’re going to the churches. We’re knocking on the doors. There’s great organizing happening. And so I think a lot of people who felt disaffected for a long time are finding a place and a home within our campaign and within our movement.
Same with the Republicans and conservatives who were disaffected with this MAGA extremism of Brent Taylor and his ilk, who say, “You know, I want common-sense laws. I want common-sense gun laws. I want an end to the endless wars. I want money in our pocket and I want big money out of politics.”
Those people, they’re like, “Pearson’s the person for it.” That’s what they tell me. They say, “I vote for the man, not the party.”
And I think that’s what’s going to show up this November. And that’s what we’re going to work for, to win this thing.
TSD: If you are elected, you will make the jump from the Tennessee House to Congress. What have your experiences in Nashville, the wins and the losses, taught you that you would take to Washington?
PEARSON: I think the Tennessee General Assembly is kind of like Hollywood. If you can make it in the Tennessee Statehouse, you can make it anywhere.
I think the biggest lesson or philosophy that I have is to find common ground with people without compromising values. I talked a little bit about that before, but that was really nurtured at the Statehouse.
It’s a much more toxic work environment than I could have ever imagined. And the reality remains that you do what you can to work with people on the things that you can work with them on, and you stand up for the things that you cannot.
And I think I’ve seen people capitulate, become cowards in the face of evil in ways that are detrimental not just to democracy, but to our community. And I know I don’t want to be that. Democrats and Republicans need to be just frank and honest with you.
There’s a guy, Monty Fritts, who ran for governor. He did a good job in that race, who I disagree with about 95%, 97% of the things that he says. But he believes veterans deserve better care. And he believes people deserve clean air, clean water and clean soil. And on those two things, we can collaborate and work together.
That’s the job. It is to find the areas of collaboration.
Tim Burchett, a man who said that I need to go to prison, has legislation to ban members of Congress from trading stocks. I’d be one of the first people to co-sponsor that legislation and support it, because I believe you find common ground without compromising your values.
That’s what it’s going to take, and that’s what I’m going to take to D.C. and bring those results home to us right here.
TSD: You know the attacks are coming. Opponents will try to characterize you as too radical — the “scary Black man,” the Afro, all of it. You have dealt with that before, but how do you prepare for it in a congressional race that people outside Tennessee will be watching?
PEARSON: A couple things. It’s not what people call you, it’s what you answer to. And I’m not going to let the hate and the divisiveness and the evil dampen my spirit or my motive and motivation to serve this community.
And the other thing: What other people think about me isn’t any of my business. My business is, how do I reach voters who really matter to get their vote and to get their trust that I can do this job well?
Anybody who knows me knows I am a happy, joy-filled, faith-filled Christian husband, son and uncle. And I’m proud of those things. And I’m not going to let him take me away from who I am.
And if you’re afraid of the Afro, that’s your problem, not mine. (laughs) Those people are afraid because they’re jealous. My opponent is bald and can’t grow one himself. (laughs)
TSD: Is there anything I have not asked that you think people need to understand about what you are trying to build with this campaign?
PEARSON: Our goal here is to build power in order to not just win a congressional race, but to change the trajectory of politics in the state of Tennessee by elevating the issues of working-class, poor white, poor Black, poor Latino, Hispanic folks, and people who’ve been pushed to the margins in this state for too long.
This is the type of coalition that can win. And we’re going to build it, we’re going to win and we’re going to keep building it.
