Justin Jones is a community organizer, Tennessee state representative, and public theologian whose work lives at the heart of transformational leadership, values-based advocacy, and people-first governance. A tireless voice for justice, Justin rose to national prominence in 2023 when he was expelled from the Tennessee General Assembly for leading a protest in response to the Covenant School shooting. His expulsion became a flashpoint in the national conversation about democracy, dissent, and leadership for the moment. Just days later, thousands marched alongside him as he was reinstated, reclaiming space for community voice in the People’s House.
Born in Oakland, California, and raised by a single mother who became a nurse and union organizer, Justin’s path has always been rooted in intergenerational wisdom and movement values. As a student, he organized to expand Medicaid, challenged voter suppression laws, and mobilized against racial profiling and police violence. A proud graduate of Fisk University, where he received the John R. Lewis Scholarship for Social Activism, Justin also pursued graduate work in Theological Studies at Vanderbilt University. He draws on a deep well of public theology, moral imagination, and historical consciousness.
Now, as the youngest Black lawmaker in Tennessee and the representative of Nashville’s most diverse district, Justin brings clarity, care, and consistency to his work in the legislature. He continues to build brave spaces for dialogue, coalition across difference, and transformative policy rooted in care, from climate justice led by frontline communities to the fight for economic dignity, public education and democracy defense. His activism spans from the streets of Ferguson and Standing Rock to the halls of power in Tennessee, always in service of a multiracial, multifaith, multigenerational movement committed to reimagining systems and expanding who belongs.
Justin is a leader of the next generation, committed to collaborative leadership and cultural shift rooted in the belief that healing, justice, and imagination are not separate paths, but shared practices. Whether organizing at the grassroots, speaking across the country, or challenging power from within the system, he calls others into a vision of the South not as it was, but as it can be, a South rising anew.
