Memphis city authorities returned the second of two Democratic state lawmakers ousted last week for protesting gun violence on the house floor on Wednesday.

Last week, Republicans in the Virginia House of Representatives expelled Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, two Black males in their late 20s who had recently joined the legislature, for their nonviolent protest on March 30.

On Monday, Nashville councilors overwhelmingly swore Jones back in until a special election can be held for the rest of his two-year term.

At a special meeting in Memphis, Pearson’s district, the Shelby County Board of Commissioners, where Democrats have a supermajority, agreed to do the same for Pearson on Wednesday afternoon. All seven of the board’s 13 councilors present voted for Pearson’s reinstatement.

“You can’t expel hope,” Pearson stated at the meeting following the vote. Justice is unavoidable. We’ll speak.” He will be sworn in again on Thursday at the Nashville State Capitol.

Mickell Lowery, the board’s Democratic chairman, termed the expulsions “unfortunate” while announcing the meeting.

“I believe the expulsion of State Representative Justin Pearson was conducted in a hasty manner without consideration of other corrective action methods,” Lowery stated.

Along with Knoxville Democrat Gloria Johnson, Jones and Pearson led a March 30 House floor rally that disrupted a legislative session. After a former student killed three 9-year-olds and three staff members at a Nashville school earlier in the week, enraged locals backed them.

Johnson nearly avoided House decorum expulsion. After the ballots, she informed reporters she survived because she is white, and all three labeled the expulsions anti-democratic.

The expulsions brought national attention to Jones and Pearson, including a visit last week by Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, to offer support, and energized many voters in the Democrat-leaning cities they represent in a Republican state.

Senate Democrats have requested a DOJ investigation into the ousted legislators’ constitutional rights.

According to state chairman Hendrell Remus, the Tennessee Democratic Party received over $400,000 in campaign contributions just last week, more than in the preceding three months.

Pearson, Jones, and Johnson addressed 500 supporters outside Memphis’ National Civil Rights Museum before marching to the commissioners’ meeting.

“This is a democracy that they’re scared of,” Pearson told the roaring crowd, “because this is a democracy that changes the status quo.”

Jones called Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton an “enemy to multiracial democracy” and said he and Pearson would visit the House in Nashville on Thursday to demand his resignation.

“Rather than pass commonsense gun laws, they passed a resolution to expel the two youngest Black members in the General Assembly,” Jones stated.

Sexton did not remark. This week, House Republicans, who have a supermajority, said they would “welcome” booted state politicians returning by county governments if they followed the legislature’s procedures.