More than a thousand people rallied for Justin Pearson, a Democratic state representative running for Congress, in the wake of four fatal shootings by members of the Memphis Safe Task Force over the last two months.

Crowds packed New Direction Christian Church in the city’s Hickory Hill neighborhood in support of Pearson, who is running in the now-fractured ninth congressional district’s Democratic primary.

“Today we are in the fight of our lives to make this district, our state, and this nation better for ourselves and for those who will come after us,” Pearson said.

“If God be for us, it doesn’t matter if every white supremacist in the Tennessee General Assembly is against us, and that nothing can separate us from the love of God that’s found in Christ Jesus. No matter what they call us, no matter where they redline us, no matter how they try and lynch us, no matter what. Grandmama said, “‘If God be for us, it doesn’t matter who or what is against.’”

Progressive US representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Summer Lee of Pennsylvania joined him.

“Justin has shown up in the quiet moments for the neighbor in need,” Pressley said. “He shows up in the consequential moments when our rights are on the line. He shows up when the nation is watching Tennessee.”

Pearson is one of two legislators who were expelled from the Republican-controlled Tennessee general assembly in April 2023 after protesting the lack of gun control legislation following the Covenant school shooting in Nashville earlier that year. The Shelby county commission subsequently reappointed him to his seat.

Tennessee legislators swiftly redrew the state’s congressional districts in May after the blockbuster Callais ruling by the US supreme court which effectively dismantled the Voting Rights Act. The redistricting carved the ninth district, the state’s only Democratic district covering a city that has 400,000 Black residents, into three, none of which has a Democratic voting majority.

“Memphis, I hope you know that you’re at the epicenter of a storm that’s brewing all over this country,” Lee said, likening the redistricting to the Jim Crow south. “When I can’t afford gas, I don’t need a white paper on affordability … We have a lot of people who are just hoping that we can just put our heads down and get back to a normal that did not work for Memphis. That normal didn’t work for Pittsburgh, and I know that that normal didn’t work across this country.”

Pearson, 31, has emerged as a progressive firebrand in his short tenure as an elected official. He had planned to challenge Steve Cohen, Memphis’ long-serving Democratic congressman, before the redistricting, but Cohen retired rather than run in the altered district.

Pearson hopes to capitalize on the volunteer army and vigor for progressive politics in Democratic primaries, demonstrated by recent victories by democratic socialists in New York and elsewhere.

“When I think about where my first political consciousness was formed, it actually didn’t come from a book written by Marx,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “It came from watching what happened in Memphis, in Montgomery, and Selma and Atlanta.”

She referenced the writing of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, and his ambitions for the country in the days before his assassination in Memphis, and said the speed with which Republicans redistricted Memphis was no accident of timing. “We are here to pick up where King left off 50 years ago.”

She referenced environmental damage being done by the xAI data center on Memphis’ south side, and the wealth of Elon Musk, recurring topics at the rally.

“Long before Justin ever stood on the floor of the Tennessee House fighting for dignity, he grew up in Southwest Memphis, the most polluted area of the city,” Ocasio-Cortez said, noting how Pearson was an environmental activist before running for public office. “He planned public meetings with neighbors, and against all odds, together with the people of this incredible city, they forced two – not one, but two – billion-dollar corporations to abandon their projects.”

Pearson faces M LaTroy A-Williams, London Lamar and Jim Torino in the Democratic primary on 6 August.

Hickory Hill has seen disproportionate attention from state and federal law enforcement agencies in the police surge. Teams of state, federal and local police officers often stage for traffic stops and arrests in the mall and school near New Direction church.

The families of some of those killed by task force agents joined Pearson on stage.

Most recently, the death of Tywin Johnson, 20, has begun to spark a reaction by Memphians. Johnson was a musician with no criminal record killed by National Guard soldiers who were responding to a report of a robbery suspect downtown.

While taskforce spokespeople said Johnson was armed, they have refused to elaborate about the circumstances that led troops to open fire on a civilian, and have refused to release video footage captured by a Memphis police street camera hanging almost immediately above the location of the shooting, despite Johnson’s family calling on officials to release the footage. The soldiers were not wearing body cameras.

The deaths were predictable once Donald Trump ordered federal agents into the city last year, Pearson said.

“Our worst fears have been realized,” he said. “Let us remember these beloved families whose lives have been forever altered.”