Our Share the Plate Partner for August of 2025 is the FUUN Palmer Lecture.
The annual Robert C. Palmer Lecture on Human Rights was established by the church’s Board of Directors in 1983 to honor the legacy and service of the Rev. Robert Palmer, our first called minister. Rev. Palmer was a social activist on many fronts, including the United Nations, nuclear disarmament, and the Civil Rights Movement.
Our 2025 Guest Speaker will be Representative Justin Jones.
In 2020, after the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Justin and a group of Nashville activists began organizing marches and protests against police brutality, and demanding a change to the system of policing that allowed racism and anti-Blackness. Lawmakers refused to meet with them, but undeterred, Justin and activists from around the state started the Ida B. Wells People’s Plaza. Situated in front of the state capitol, activists gathered, held rallies, built community, while continually occupying the space for 62 days.
Justin faced over 18 charges for his role in leading the nonviolent protest. After multiple court dates and hearings showing the absurdity of the false charges, all his charges were dismissed or retired. As a direct result of the protests, the statue to Ku Klux Klan Grandwizard Nathan Bedford Forrest was also finally removed from a place of prominence in the Tennessee Capitol to the State museum after being put up in 1978. Justin also led the charge to stop a retaliatory bill in response to the protests that would grant criminal immunity to drivers who run over protesters. This is where he saw that something could and must be changed in the Tennessee Capitol.
When Justin ran for office he did so with the help of young people and grandmothers, a unique coalition of people who wanted to change the status quo and bring change to the state legislature. His campaign was set on a message of a politics of moral clarity, urgency, and progressive change, and he offered an unapologetic vision of tireless advocacy and resistance to a supermajority that had weaponized its power against the state’s most marginalized. His core issues included police reform, environmental justice, and expanded healthcare access, issues he had long been advocating for, and now from an elected position, could amplify and craft policy to address. Justin knocked thousands of doors and used his organizing background to challenge the status quo. Despite the long odds, Justin won the Democratic primary against a city councilmember, and went on to represent House District 52, the most diverse district in Tennessee. Stretching from East Nashville, to Donelson, to Antioch, Justin’s district is filled with working-class Nashvillians who keep the city running, and artists who continue to make Nashville “Music City.” He also became both the youngest Black and Democratic lawmaker in the state of Tennessee.
Justin successfully pushed back against harmful legislation like Governor Bill Lee’s “Voucher Scam”, and Rep. Vaughan’s “Wetland Destruction” bill. He also stood with hundreds of activists against bills attacking the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants, and Black students, unwaveringly supporting those who continually show up to hold their government accountable.
After two years of relentless fighting, Justin is running in his fifth election in just two years, and doing so with a platform centered on rebuilding our democracy, protecting our environment, and taking on gun extremists who have made our state unsafe for children.
Justin represents a new vision of Tennessee of representation can and should look like. In direct challenge to Southern segregationists’ declaration for “the South to rise again,” he continues to fight and organize in the halls of the legislature for the South to rise ANEW!
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