MSNBC Anchor and Boston native Lawrence O’Donnell will be back home this weekend for a live audience chat with Tennessee Rep. Justin Pearson, who came to notoriety for his staunch advocacy of gun safety legislation earlier this year.
O’Donnell has interviewed Pearson on his MSNBC show “Last Word” several times and isn’t shy about comparing the 28-year-old lawmaker to big historical names.
“When I was a kid at St. Brendan Elementary School, Martin Luther King marched in Boston,” O’Donnell told NBC10 Boston. “And I knew then as an elementary school student that history came to Boston that day. And when I saw Rep. Pearson rise and speak for the first time, I knew that I was watching history.”
After the mass shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, Pearson led protests in the state’s legislature for new gun safety legislation. Ultimately, his peaceful protest efforts got him expelled from the Tennessee House of Representatives. Voters sent him back in the next election and his legislative advocacy continues, where O’Donnell expects the fight for increased gun safety to be long.
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“I expect Rep. Pearson, during the course of his career, to be on the winning side of these issues, literally decades from now, and at many points between now and then,” he said.
Lawrence O’Donnell’s conversation with Rep. Justin Pearson is the keynote address at the ABCD Community Heroes Celebration on Friday, November 3 at the Boston Marriott Copley Place. NBC10 Boston Anchor Glenn Jones will emcee the event.
