A local Middle Tennessee publication has continued a foray of political hit pieces on a local Nashville area activist named Justin Jones.
This article is in defense of Justin. He is African American, a graduate of a private historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee, and current graduate student at Vanderbilt University. Fisk University was the first African-American institution to receive accreditation from the Southern Association of colleges and School. Their students have a long history of fighting social injustice, and Justin has simply been following in that tradition.
The latest article against Justin, is more an attack on the African-American judge who handled the case then on him personally. In Justin Jones Facebook posting, he even mentioned that The Tennessee Star exposed personal information regarding his grandmother.
From Justin’s facebook post:
“Chris Butler has literally 8 articles about my life going back to even high school. I thought it would end after the election, but he wrote again last night and the violent hateful messages continue. He loves posting my photo and where I go to school, and even my grandma’s information to inflame his base.”
Last October Justin attended a private event for Marsha Blackburn and Lindsey Graham with a RSVP in hopes of peacefully representing his views. From there he was asked to leave by a private security guard, he was then arrested. It has subsequently come out that Jones was not even the source of the disturbance during the moment of silence, but he took the fall for the actions of another person.
Here at the Cumberland Sentinel, we feel that any possible way we can to tone down the narrative, we try to. We feel that level heads will prevail, because that’s what we were taught when we were young. Why would the Tennessee Star continue to provoke disunion by bringing up matters that are left to the justice system? What else would they want happen to a man who was unfairly arrested for peacefully protesting at Marsha Blackburn’s rally. The attorney General has already placed charges of criminal trespassing? It makes you wonder what else do they want.
Regardless, Justin is a brave man who is standing up for injustice in his community. There is no shadow of a doubt that the Republican Party has been at the very least slightly unfair to people of the African American community wherever they are prominent. Justin RSVP’ing and attending an event doesn’t make him a bad person, unethical, and certainly not criminal. Most certainly anybody ejected from an event because somebody is seen as a threat can eject them for whatever reason. But putting charges on this man for criminal trespassing even though he RSVP’d and then peacefully made his way into the event and through security without an eye blink, is questionable at best. Marsha Blackburn’s assertion that Justin was “disruptive” was certainly not true. His actions does not warrant hit pieces about him, or the continued harassment for standing up to what he believes in.
In an era that more and more echos that of the civil right movement, we at the Cumberland Sentinel appreciate the work of young men like Jones who show us that while we have come a long way there is still a long way to go.
