NASHVILLE — Tennessee’s Black lawmakers came back to the Capitol earlier this month with a request for their White colleagues: Advance public policy to send modest signals that say, “Yes, Black lives do matter.”
“You can’t just like Black people,” said Rep. Harold Love, a black pastor from Nashville, speaking in somber tones in front of the House chamber on June 1.
The Legislature adjourned Friday – leaving Black lawmakers convinced that their colleagues had failed to rise to the moment.
A breaking point came late Tuesday when Republican House lawmakers refused to advance a resolution honoring a Black gay teenager who had been shot and killed earlier this year, a measure with no practical impact beyond a simple show of support.
Sen. Brenda Gilmore, a Black Democrat from Nashville, announced earlier this month that she could no longer support legislation on a bill that had originally sought to stop observance in the state of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and early Ku Klux Klan leader.
