‘Trying To Keep It Together!’ MSNBC’s Capehart Gets Emotional Over MLK-Era Fights ‘Still Being Fought’ By Expelled Black TN Rep

MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart became visibly emotional while interviewing expelled Democratic Tennessee State Rep. Justin Jones and Democratic California Congresswoman Barbara Lee, observing the MLK-era fights  of Lee’s generation are “still being fought” by Jones.

On Thursday, the Tennessee House held a vote to expel Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson — both of whom are Black — over a protest calling for gun reform in the wake of the shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School that killed 6 people. Rep. Gloria Johnson, a 60-year-old white woman who participated in the protest, also faced an expulsion vote.

The legislature spared Rep. Johnson but expelled Jones and Pearson. That disparity has been flagged by the Tennessee Three and others as a racist double standard.

On Saturday morning’s edition of The Saturday Show with Jonathan Capehart, the host became choked up while making a “generational observation” as he interviewed Jones and Rep. Lee, and again as he concluded the interview:

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Congresswoman Lee, I am sitting here trying to hold it together! Because on the screen right now, Representative Jones talked about a generational shift. That’s happening in Tennessee right now. And what I’m seeing on this screen is literally a generational shift for folks who have watched this program. And certainly for those who don’t know.

Congresswoman Lee got into politics to work on Shirley Chisholm’s presidential campaign. I don’t know if you were as young as Representative Jones is now, but the things you were you were fighting for back then are things basically that Representative Jones is fighting for today. Congresswoman Lee, 55 years after the assassination of Martin Luther King, can you please talk to us about what it means that right now in this country, the fights that you were fighting are still being fought by the young man on the other side of this screen?

REP. BARBARA LEE: Well, Jonathan, I also, and I think you know this, I was a community worker with the Black Panther Party, feeding hungry children, protesting because people didn’t have enough to eat here in California and then Oakland specifically. And so I was reminded, and Justin reminds me of Dr. King and what he said in terms of the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards just as we’ve made a lot of progress in this country. But we haven’t addressed the basic issue of white supremacy and institutional racism. And, Jonathan, I remember the picture. I think we may have first met him in Selma, Alabama. He was there with Reverend Barber fighting, you know, for making sure we lift people out of poverty, fighting for democracy.

And so we have to continue this fight. It’s not, it’s multi-generational. I mean, we had, what, 250 years of enslaved Africans here in this country. And so the DNA in this country is DNA is white supremacy and racism. And so this is a marathon. It’s not a sprint.

And Jonathan, I just want to say Justin, Jonathan, is continuing with this fight. These young people are leading. These young people are showing up and say, we ain’t waiting any more, no more waiting. We’re going to claim our right in this country, our rights in this country. And we’re not going to sit down and let these people develop an anti-democratic strategy to turn this country into an autocracy where only one point of view is is heard or seen.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Representative Jones, we’ve got a minute left. I’m going to give you the last word. What is your message to Tennessee, but also to the country about what your what you are fighting for?

JUSTIN JONES: I just want to say to to my one of my dear inspirations, Congresswoman Lee, you know, who has stood up against the violence of militarism. And that’s what we’re calling for. We’re calling for peace and justice here in the South and in Tennessee, calling for peace and justice for our children.

Watch above via The Saturday Show with Jonathan Capehart.