I'm Jonathan Kapart and welcome to Kapart.

In a few days, America will celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This year, the National Holiday lands on his actual birthday, January 15th.

Had he lived, he would have been 95 years old.

Instead, King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968.

But his legacy lives on in a generation of new leaders that includes Tennessee State Representative

Justin J. Pearson, one of two African American legislators briefly expelled from State House over protesting

gun violence on the House floor last year.

In this conversation first recorded for Washington Post Live on January 11th.

Representative Pearson talks passionately

about how Dr King's work is far from over.

It is great to see you again. So speaking of Dr. King, before we start talking about Dr. King and his legacy, as we have heard in the intro clips of you speaking, public speaking, your speaking style has been compared to Dr. King's. How does that make you feel?

It's extremely humbling. Dr. King was obviously one of the greatest orders in the United States of

America, one of the greatest orders in the United States of America,

one of the greatest orders of the 20th century.

And I give a lot of credit to the Black Church.

As I read somewhere, the Black Church loved me

and I loved her back. I'm the son of a preacher and the son of a teacher and so I have been able to practice the skill and people have entrusted me with sermons and have entrusted me with

public speaking opportunities but it is really the same God that Dr King

believed in a God of justice a God of love a God truth, a god who could break the shackles of

white supremacy and break the shackles of oppression is the same god that I speak about and that I believe in

and the democracy that Dr King and Fannie Lou Hamer and so many others were fighting for to make real his promises is the same democracy that today in Tennessee and in the United States of America we are fighting to make real its promises.

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